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THE BIBLICAL STORY 
OF CREATION 


Digitized by the Internet Archive — 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/biblicalstoryofcOObart_0O 





The Biblical Story ag 


Creation 


In the Light of the Recently Discovered 


Babylonian Documents 


By | 


GIORGIO ‘BARTOLI 
Pu. D., D.Sc., D.D. 


PHILADELPHIA 
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY 
THe SuNDAY ScHooL TIMES COMPANY 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


FOREWORD 
(By a Florentine Friend) 


HE genius of the age in which we live is 
decidedly opposed to a supernatural rev- 


elation of God to mankind. The present 
religion of humanity is the worship of mechan- 
ies, of science, of force, of Nature as it repre- 
sents itself to man exclusively in its material 
aspect. Most men never think that physical and 
material Nature might, after all, be but a 
symbol of higher and spiritual things —a veil 
behind which the Infinite, the Absolute, the Al- 
mighty conceals himself. The majority of men, 
being carnally minded, stop at the material side 
of Nature and go no farther. The spiritual side 
of the universe is hidden from them; it is a 
mystery the existence of which they do not even 
faintly imagine: for it is a problem that does 
not touch them. 

Hence Genesis—the Biblical narrative of how 
the heavens and the earth came into being— 
does not appeal to them. It leaves them cold 
and skeptical, or they laugh it to scorn because 
they suppose it flatly contradicts those themes, 

7 


8 HOREWORD 


that science, which they worship as their only 
god. The contradiction of Genesis to science is 
taken by them for granted and as undeniable— 
a matter of course, which no one can gainsay. 

And now here is a highly-gifted man, a man 
of great experience, a trained theologian as well 
as a prominent scientist, who has come forward 
to maintain that Genesis, rightly interpreted, is 
by no means in contradiction with true science. 
Of science, falsely so-called, there is little dis- 
cussion in this book. 

Dr. Bartoli is specially qualified for the task 
he has undertaken. His life, one of purest self- 
denial and intense religious devotion, has 
been passed in study and in imparting knowl- 
edge to others. He lived for many years in the 
East, and is familiar with the tongues and the 
sacred books of the ancient nations. He is, 
moreover, a fervent admirer of the Bible, which 
he holds to be the only book really worth 
reading. He is a Christian,—an undenomina- 
tional Christian. He might call himself a 
Bible Christian, but he prefers the simple 
name Christian. And he is in the pay of no 
church. He lives by his work, and as Professor 
of Geology and Chemistry he is now Director 
of a mine in Sardinia. Such a man deserves 
a hearing; his book has the seal of truth, be- 


FOREWORD 9 


cause it is not merely his views that he puts 
forward. He seeks to resuscitate what he be- 
lieves to be the old interpretation of Genesis, 
that which the Jewish writers taught in pre- 
Christian times, and which was followed by our 
Lord Jesus Christ and the holy apostles when 
they delivered to the nations the message of the 
Gospels. 





CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I. CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE FROM NoTH- 
ING eeoeeeoeeveeeeeeeveeeeeveeeeeeeseeeeee € 

II. Tue MANNER OF THE CREATION OF THE 
WENTUERS Re ot Soe nee eee Ca eee ae 

III. CREATION OF THE ANGELS, AND THEIR RE- 
BETAIONAGATINGT GOD Yocg sca tiece cl cccsere 

IV. Revoir or ANGELS AND PERIOD OF CHAOS, 
IN OTHER ANCIENT DOCUMENTS ...... 

V. Tue DRAGONS oF CHAOS IN THE BIBLE .. 
VI. Tue Mystery orf THE EXISTENCE OF Evin 
VII. Tue Driving RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNI- 


RBs AND. MOLENCE . sisis\e's as\s e.claie ¥iele s 


PAGE 


13 


34 


oT 


80 
97 
118 


122 





I 


CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE 
FROM NOTHING 


HERE is no book, perhaps, which has so 
taxed the mind of ancient and modern 
writers as the first of the five books of 
Moses, — Genesis. Numberless commentaries 
have been written on it, and it still continues to 
be commented upon, because its contents are so 
mysterious, so profound, and so pregnant with 
surprising and unforeseen meanings that no 
commentator can reasonably hope to satisfy the 
views of all his readers, and to solve all the 
mysteries connected with its mighty theme,— 
the creation of the universe out of nothing. 
Genesis is also the book most bitterly and 
unceasingly combated by infidel science. Hru- 
dition, scholarship, encyclopedic knowledge, 
journalistic omniscience have all stood up in 
battle array against the first chapters of Gene- 
sis, which have been declared to be mythical, 
fabulous, and absolutely unhistorical. 
Nor is this to be wondered at. The open and 
secret enemies of Christ and his Gospel in- 
13 


14 THe BrsnuicaAL Story OF CREATION 


stinctively feel that, once Genesis is demolished 
and its narratives relegated to the Olympus of 
mythological folklore, the New Testament like- 
wise must of necessity fall and crumble to 
pieces; because the two Testaments, the Old 
and the New, are so intimately connected that 
they form but one Book in two parts, one great 
Building, which is reared on the granite rock of 
Genesis and which raises its golden pinnacles 
toward the new Jerusalem, sung by the poet- 
seer John the divine. 

The evolutionists, of course, reject the first 
chapters of Genesis because these flatly contra- 
dict their beloved theory; the Pantheists re- 
fuse to accept them because Genesis clearly pro- 
claims the Personality of an Infinite God; the 
rationalists combat them in the name of reason 
and of science falsely so-called. 

But, so far, there is little cause for surprise. 
What is rather to be marvelled at, and re- 
gretted, is that millions of weak Christians very 
readily give up Genesis as unimportant, think- 
ing thereby to save the rest of God’s revelation 
to man. Never was entertained a more shal- 
low, foolish, and dangerous thought! With 
Genesis stands or falls the whole fabric of 
Christianity. Let Christians undeceive them- 
selves! If the facts, the miracles, the wonders 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 15 


affirmed and narrated in Genesis are myths, 
fables and legends, then the miracles narrated 
in other parts of Scripture and in the Gospels 
are not less fabulous and incredible. There is 
no reason to discriminate between the two. 
Those weak and injudicious Christians too 
easily forget that our Lord Jesus Christ con- 
stantly appeals to Genesis, and to the other 
books of the Pentateuch, as the inspired Word 
of God; and that he never for a moment 
doubted the historical authenticity and veracity 
of the Mosaic record. They forget that the 
twelve apostles, preaching throughout the 
world the Gospel of Christ, generally com- 
menced their teachings by affirming before their 
Gentile hearers their faith in God, the Creator 
of heaven and earth out of nothing. Genesis 
went before the Gospel. The faith in one God, 
who had created the universe out of nothing, 
was made a stepping stone of ascent to ever 
loftier truths: the perfect comprehension of 
the divine plan of man’s re-creation; his spirit- 
ual redemption. 

-~“No words can suffice to explain the impor- 
tance which the doctrine of the creation of the 
heavens, of the earth, and of man out of noth- 
ing by an infinite and almighty God, had for the 
primitive Church. The ecclesiastical docu- 


16 THe BrsuicaL SToRY OF CREATION 


ments of those early days are full of it. The 
eathechisms or religious instructions that were 
imparted to the neophytes before they were ad- 
mitted to holy baptism commenced with the 
teaching of Genesis. The first article of the 
Apostolic Creed proclaims the faith of the be- 
liever in one God, Creator of heaven and earth. 
The liturgy of the early Church is saturated 
with admirable and sublime _ expressions, 
whereby the faithful thank God for the works 
of creation. Those early Christians used to 
commemorate, each day in their prayers, that 
order of things which God, on that day, had 
created out of nothing. On Sunday they men- 
tioned the general creation of the universe and 
the appearance of light. On Monday they re- 
corded the making of the firmament. On Tues- 
day the appearance of the dry land and the 
creation of plant-life. On Wednesday the ap- 
pearance of the sun, moon, and planets. On 
Thursday the creation of animal life. On Fri- 
day the fecundity of the earth and the creation 
of man. On Saturday the mysterious rest of 
God from the wonderful works which he had 
created. Adam the first man was created on a 
Friday; Christ, the second man, and the last 
Adam, on a Friday expired on the cross and 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 17 


thus atoned for the sin committed by his pro- 
totype. 

Nor was this constant teaching and commem- 
oration of the creation of the universe made by 
the apostles without a cogent reason. They 
wanted by this to teach the early Christians the 
absolute dependence of man on God, a funda- 
mental truth of the Old and New Testament. 
According to the inspired Word of the Bible, 
God is everything, man is simply nothing. Man 
is God’s creature. Absolute being, independent 
existence, belong to God alone. The universe 
eame forth through creation from the hands of 
God; man, of himself and in himself, possesses 
nothing, except sin; even the good works which 
he does would not be good if God did not help 
him to do them, anticipating him with his grace, 
accompanying him with the same, and crown- 
ing in him his gracious favors in the eternal 
life. 

Man is nothing. This is the constant teach- 
ing of the Old Testament. This doctrine stands 
at the very base of the granite building of the 
Bible, which rests entirely on it. The absolute 
dependence of the universe and of man on God; 
the absolute lordship of God over the universe 
and over man are so constantly taught, re- 
peated, insisted upon in the Old Testament, that 

2 


18 THe BisuicaL STORY OF CREATION 


one might be inclined to think they were even 
pushed too far, exaggerated and made too much 
of. In fact, it is not merely said that the uni- 
verse, the angels, the earth, and man are simply 
nothing when compared with God; that God is 
everything, the only Master, the only Lord, the 
only God; but it is likewise constantly affirmed 
that the physical evils, diseases, death, famine, 
pestilence, foreign invasions into the land of 
Israel come from God and happen through the 
command and direct will or through the special 
intervention of Jahwe, the almighty God. 

This mysterious and magnificent conception, 
this sublime idea, this wonderful and daring 
affirmation rests exclusively on the central fact 
of the creation of the universe and of man out 
of nothing. Creation is to God what a legal deed 
of possession is to us. God possesses this abso- 
lute mastery over the universe and over man be- 
cause he has created the one and the other out 
of nothing. If the universe was not created, 
but always existed, or if it evolved slowly and 
gradually from chaotic matter which did not 
owe its existence to God, he, then, is not by 
right Master and Lord of the universe. If on 
the contrary the universe and man owe their 
being and existence to God; if whatever man 
possesses, body, soul, children, country, all 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 19 


came to him from God, nothing excepted; then 
man must be subjected and obedient to God be- 
cause God is his Maker, his Creator, his Master, 
his Lord, his God. This truth forms, as I have 
said, the granite foundation of both the Hebrew 
and the Christian religions, and this is the rea- 
son why the apostles, preaching the divine mes- 
sage of Christ, taught the Gentiles as well as 
the Jews, first of all, this important truth. 

On the other hand the creation of the uni- 
verse and of man out of nothing manifests 
God’s goodness, because only an infinitely good 
God could create the heavens and the earth 
and whatever is contained therein. Indeed, 
God being infinitely happy in himself and need- 
ing nothing, he could not have created such a 
beautiful and wonderful universe but for the 
sake of the creatures made by him, i. e., in order 
to make them share, so far as they are capable 
of it, in his being, wisdom, power, and happi- 
ness. Which happiness, for intellectual crea- 
tures, begins here on earth with the study and 
contemplation of the infinite God, mirrored and 
rendered almost visible and tangible through 
his creation, and will have its completion and 
perfection in the life to come, with the vision of 
God as he is in himself. 

Therefore it is man’s duty, so long as he 


20 Tue BrBuicaAL Story oF CREATION 


lives, to arrive through the study of created 
things at the knowledge of God; and ‘‘the 
wrath of God,’’ as Paul says, ‘‘is revealed from 
heaven against all ungodliness and unright- 
eousness of men, who hold the truth in un- 
righteousness; because that which may be 
known of God is manifest in them; for God 
hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible 
things of him from the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things 
that are made, even his eternal power and God- 
head; so that they are without excuse: be- 
cause that, when they knew God, they glorified 
him not as God, neither were thankful; but be- 
came vain in their imaginations; and their 
foolish heart was darkened. Professing them- 
selves to be wise, they became fools’’ (Rom. 
1; 18-22). 

According to the weighty words of Paul, all 
men, from the very creation of the earth, might 
have known God, clearly seeing him in his works 
and understanding his invisible perfections and 
attributes, which Paul sums up in ‘‘his eternal 
power and Godhead.’’ God’s almighty power, 
eternity, and Godhead are the chief attributes 
of the Deity. Could men also know the fact of 
the creation of the universe out of nothing? 
Undoubtedly, because, with regard to the origin 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 21 


of the universe, no theory so satisfies the mind 
as creation out of nothing by an almighty and 
eternal God. Therefore rightly Paul affirms 
that men are inexcusable, because, God having 
manifested himself to them, they glorified him 
not as God, neither were thankful. Hence their 
foolish heart was darkened, and, professing 
themselves to be wise, they became fools. These 
words describe the mental state of millions of 
wiseacres, of philosophers, of rationalists, and 
of scientists falsely so-called. Throughout 
long centuries, from the earliest ages down to 
our day, millions and millions of men belonging 
to all nations believed, even though imperfectly, 
the creation of the universe out of nothing, 
through the power and wisdom of an almighty 
God; but philosophers, unfortunately, and peo- 
ple who deem themselves cultured, knowing, 
and wise, rejected this simple, natural and an- 
cient belief; and there followed, on the origin 
of the universe, all kinds of theories, each one 
stranger and more fantastic than the other, so 
much so Cicero was amply justified when he 
uttered his memorable saying on philosophers: 
‘‘Nihil est tam absurdem quod aliqui philoso- 
phorum non dixerint.’’ ‘‘Nothing is so absurd 
that it has not been said by one or another of 
the philosophers.’’ 


ae THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


This is not the place to refute the absurd 
theories of philosophers on the origin of the 
universe. As there are not two of them who, 
when thinking independently, agree with each 
other, it is not worth while to waste time on 
refuting them. I will rather mention briefly 
what was believed about our subject by the 
ancient nations, which, being nearer to the 
origin of things, might have known something 
more about them than philosophers, who came 
centuries and centuries afterward. 

All ancient nations possessed certain books 
which they considered God-inspired, and which 
record the principal facts narrated in Genesis, 
just as in the Bible of the Hebrews. The Egyp- 
tians possessed the ‘‘Book of the Dead’’; the 
Ancient Persians the ‘‘ Avesta and Vendidad’’; 
the Brahmins the ‘‘ Vedas and Puranas’’; the 
Babylonians the ‘‘ Poem of Creation’’ and other 
narratives, contained in the tablets found at 
Nineveh and Babylon, which George Smith, 
Langdon, and others have translated into mod- 
ern tongues; the Etruscans had the ‘‘Book of 
Ancient Doctrine’’ mentioned by Valerius Max- 
imus, Varro, Cicero and many others; the 
Greeks possessed certain most ancient books, 
mentioned by Hesiod. So much for the nations 
nearer to us. But also the far distant nations, 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 23 


as the Chinese, the Japanese, the Incas, the 
ancient Mexicans, the mysterious inhabitants 
of North America and of the Pacific Islands, 
the Seandinavians, the inhabitants of Africa 
preserved in written books and oral traditions 
the principal facts of Genesis, 1. e., the creation 
of heaven and earth, the creation of man, his 
fall, the earthly paradise, the gigantic stature 
and long life of the antediluvian men and their 
unrighteousness and iniquity, and the universal 
deluge which swept them from the face of the 
earth. As to this latter tradition the learned 
Lenormant states that ‘‘it is an absolutely uni- 
versal tradition, and that there is no people or 
fragment of a people which has not possessed 
it.?? 

The sacred books of the nations are evidently 
based on Genesis. To be convinced of this, it 
will suffice to compare Genesis with the Poem 
of Creation written by the Babylonians, with 
the Avesta of the Persians, with the Vedas and 
the Laws of Manu of the Brahmins. But what a 
difference between these books and Genesis! 
The Biblical narratives of the creation of the 
universe and of man, of the temptation and fall 
of man, of the life of the first men upon earth, 
are sober, concise, almost without anthropomor- 
phisms, devoid of heathen symbols, of fables, of 


24 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


fantastic and poetic myths; and, moreover, they 
are rigidly monotheistic. The narratives of the 
same facts which we find in the books of the 
nations are diffuse, fantastic, grotesque, often 
absurd, puerile, and ridiculous, and always they 
are tainted with legends, fables, and myths, 
which alter and disfigure them completely. 

As is rightly inferred, the Biblical narrative 
does not depend on the Oriental cosmologies, 
but these depend on Genesis. In fact all critics 
admit, as an indisputable canon of criticism, 
that of two narratives, both of them coeval or 
supposed to be so, and one depending on the 
other, that one is the older and the source of 
the other which is more concise in style, more 
sober in figure of speech, less polytheistic, and 
less marred by poetic and fantastic superstruc- 
tures. Accepting this sound canon of historical 
criticism, no one can rightly doubt which is the 
older, the cosmology of Genesis or that pro- 
pounded in the books of the nations. We justly 
infer that Genesis has been the model upon 
which the other cosmologies were woven, and 
that Genesis was the primitive source of them 
all. 

This is true even with regard to the Babylo- 
nian Poem of Creation and the narratives con- 
nected with it, which are the oldest of ali Ori- 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 25 


ental cosmologies. That Poem, according to 
Langdon, its most recent translator (The Baby- 
lonian Epic of Creation, restored from the re- 
cently discovered Tablets of Assur, Oxford, 
1923), was written during the first Babylonian, 
Dynasty, which reigned between the years 2225 
and 1926 B. C. At that time there existed in 
the family of the just Noah, who died, accord- 
ing to the chronology followed by Archbishop 
Ussher, in the year 1998 B. C., the record of 
the creation that we now read in Genesis; and 
that record was a written one, not merely oral, 
because men of profound learning have placed 
beyond the possibility of controversy the fact 
that the art of writing was generally known in 
those days, as indeed it is coeval with man, and 
does not fail to appear in the oldest documents 
of humanity. 

The argument that I have so far stated is 
generally admitted by all learned Orientalists 
and by modern commentators on Genesis, but 
an important distinction must be drawn be- 
tween their opinions and mine. All or almost 
all those scholars grant that in the beginning 
there was only one tradition or legend of crea- 
tion; but according to them that was not the 
Biblical narrative, but the Babylonian. This, 
they say, the Hebrew priests of the Exile 


26 Tur BIsuicAL STorY oF CREATION 


learned in Babylon, accepted it as a plausible 
explanation of the great fact of the existence 
of the universe, purged it of all polytheistic and 
mythical excrescences, and reduced it to the 
Genesis we now read. They therefore affirm 
that in the beginning there existed the Baby- 
lonian legend, from which the Biblical narrative 
is derived, together with all other similar nar- 
ratives found in other cosmologies. On the 
contrary, I maintain that originally men pos- 
sessed the history of creation such as we now 
read in Genesis; that much later, owing to cor- 
ruption of the Biblical narrative, there arose 
the Babylonian, Vedic, Avestic, Etruscan and 
Greek myths. First history, then legend; first 
the perfect, afterward the imperfect; first 
truth, afterward error; first monotheism, then 
in progress of time polytheism. 

This doctrine is the only true one and I defy 
all the Lenormants in the world to disprove it. 
The canon of historical criticism which I have 
applied to my subject was not invented by me. 
It is the cardinal canon of the Higher Criti- 
cism: why, then, do the historians of compara- 
tive religions not follow it? Here is what the 
learned Lenormant writes: ‘‘It is the same 
narration,’’? he says, speaking of the Baby- 
lonian and the Biblical story of the creation; 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 27 


‘‘they are the same episodes, succeeding one an- 
other in the same order; and yet one must be 
blind not to see that their meaning has become 
quite another. The exuberant polytheism which 
encumbered the Chaldaic [Babylonian] cos- 
mology was carefully done away with, and the 
most rigid monotheism was introduced in its 
place. What expressed naturalistic notions, 
singularly gross and vulgar, has become the 
dress of moral verities of the highest order in 
the spiritual world. The essential traits of the 
tradition have been indeed faithfully kept; and 
yet, between the Bible and the Sacred Books of 
Chaldea [Babylonia] there yawns all the inter- 
val of one of the greatest revolutions which 
ever happened in human beliefs . . . Though 
others explain all this by a natural progress of 
the conscience of humanity, I see in it, without 
hesitation, the supernatural intervention of Di- 
vine Providence, and I bow before God who has 
inspired the Law and the Prophets’’ (Origine 
de l’Histoire, pages 19, 20). 

There is indeed, as Lenormant says, a divine 
intervention of God in the world and in human 
things; but God did not supernaturally inter- 
vene in order to cleanse the sink of the Baby- 
lonic myths, i. e., to reduce them to the sober, 
concise, monotheistic narration of Genesis. 


28 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


God did something better. God provided that 
the primitive tradition, namely, the revelation 
of himself made to humanity, should not be 
ruined or lost by all the peoples of the earth. 
God kept it pure and safe in the family of 
Adam, of Seth, Enoch, Noah, Shem, Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, and of the Hebrew people. Will 
one dare to maintain that the primitive tradi- 
tion—i. e., the primeval revelation of God to 
humanity—was in its very source and cradle 
spoiled, tainted with foul myths and impure 
legends? First the historical fact, sober, con- 
cise; afterward the myth, the legend. First 
the pure and limpid source; then the brooklet, 
the muddy torrent, the turbid river. First the 
divine revelation, pure, immaculate, rich in 
thought, deep in meaning, exuberant with joy 
and spiritual life; afterward the Babylonian, 
Vedic, Etruscan or Greek poem, or myth, the 
novel, the fable, the fairy-tale, fantastic, im- 
aginative, sensual, and luxuriant with material 
life. Does not this happen every day under 
our very eyes? Whence come myths, fables, and 
cinema stories, if not from historical facts al- 
tered, distorted, disfigured, tainted with sen- 
suality and episodes to please the eyes of cor- 
rupted men, and pander to their worst pas- 
sions? 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 29 


Another point upon which I must detain the 
reader is the question whether in the Oriental 
cosmologies there appears the conception of 
creation out of nothing, i. e., without a preéxist- 
ing chaotic matter. The answer is sufficiently 
certain. Those cosmologies, at least in the 
fragmentary state in which they were handed 
down to us, do not teach in a clear manner the 
doctrine of creation out of nothing. They are 
more or less infected with pantheism; hence 
they maintain that chaos or primeval matter 
always existed, and from it the universe, nay 
the gods also, were created and came into be- 
ing. We find indeed here and there words and 
thoughts which might be interpreted as a be- 
lief in a creation out of nothing, specially where 
the Vedic, Etruscan or Greek poets affirm that 
God ‘‘with a thought created the universe,’’ 
and similar phrases, which are met with even in 
the most mythological Babylonian tablets; but 
only in the Bible is creation out of nothing 
clearly taught and expressly maintained. In the 
other cosmologies there is merely a trace, a 
vestige, a distant mention and nothing more. 

What, however, in pagan mythologies can be 
strictly compared with Genesis is the progres- 
sive order of creation; the works of the six 
days; the idea of chaos; the origin of the first 


30 THE BIBLICAL SToRY OF CREATION 


men from God; their sin; the forbidden fruit, 
the tree of life, the serpent, the tower of Babel, 
the confusion of tongues, the ten patriarchs, 
and other points of lesser importance. But you 
look in vain in those Oriental cosmologies for 
the admirable monotheism of the Bible, or for 
that most fundamental truth of the creation of 
the universe out of nothing. 

Another point which must not be passed over 
in silence is whether the ancients, leaving aside 
what their Sacred Book taught, ever believed in 
the creation of the universe out of nothing. It 
is difficult to answer this question definitely. 
We know for certain that many wise and cul- 
tured men of ancient times knew this truth, and 
that others had a glimpse of it as from afar; 
but the great mass of the common people, se- 
duced by the fables of heathenism and the fool- 
ish theories of their philosophers, accepted as 
an uncontrovertible truth the eternity of chaos, 
whence the very gods, the supreme rulers of 
cosmos, drew their origin. 

The distortion of the primitive narration of 
creation was certainly due to the sickly imagi- 
nation of poets; but have ancient philosophers 
conceived in a more worthy manner how the 
universe came into being? Not to mention 
minor philosophers, let us listen to Plato, whom 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 31 


ancient Greece revered as her greatest thinker. 
Plato represents Socrates, and Socrates was the 
best man an idolatrous world could produce. 
As to the origin of the universe, Plato dis- 
tinctly says that it was due to God. ‘‘ All things 
were without reason and measure. . . this, I 
say, being their nature, God fashioned them by 
form and number. . . and out of them he con- 
structed the universe.’’ And again, in the same 
Timaeus, Plato asks: ‘‘Was the world, I say, 
always in existence, and without beginning or 
created and having a beginning? Created, I 
reply, being visible and tangible and having a 
body, and therefore sensible; and all sensible 
things which are apprehended by opinion and 
sense are in process of creation and created. 
Now, that which is created, must of necessity 
be created by a Cause . . . He put intelligence 
in soul, and soul in body, and framed the uni- 
verse to be the best and fairest work in the 
order of nature.’’ Elsewhere in the same book 
Plato proceeds to describe the manner of the 
creation of men and animals, where it is difficult 
to say whether the Greek philosopher spoke in 
a parable or in sober earnest. (The translation 
is by Dr. Jowett; compare Sections 30, 32, 42, 
70, 90, 91, 92 of the Timaeus.) 

Thus wrote Plato; in a manner, however, 


32 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


that makes it quite difficult for many to know 
what he really thought about creation. Yet 
any man, although not very talented, provided 
he had led a good life, might from the contem- 
plation of the universe rise to the vision of an 
Almighty God, Infinite, Eternal, Creator of 
heaven and earth out of nothing. The often re- 
peated argument of the egg or the hen, which 
in the beginning owed their respective being to 
a Cause, prior and anterior to them, which was 
neither a hen nor an egg, has lost nothing of 
its old cogency. If many philosophers do not 
feel its force or do not see its irresistible logie, 
this is to be attributed to the weakness of the 
philosophers’ brain, not to the feebleness of the 
argument. ‘The universe is an organism where 
law reigns supreme, and where the application 
of means to understood ends is quite visible. 
This presupposes a directing and thinking 
Mind. The universe is a masterpiece of art, 
where order, beauty, goodness shine in an un- 
diminished splendor. But where art is, it 
stands to reason that there likewise exists the 
artist. The universe is the issue of numberless 
calculations, some of which fall due within a 
short time, others after millenniums. Who 
could possibly make those calculations, devise 
those starry schemes, combine those cosmic 


CREATION FROM NOTHING 33 


facts, but an Eternal Mind, a Mind which never 
dies, and which, day by day, resolves in an 
adequate manner the infinite problems and 
riddles of the universe? Therefore man can, 
even without the special help of books, of able 
reasoning, or of teachers, arrive at a fair 
knowledge of God as the Infinite Creator of the 
universe. In consequence, if the philosophers 
of the heathen world did not know God, they are 
to be blamed for it; it must not be attributed 
to the unknowableness of the universe. There- 
fore, to repeat again Paul’s words, they are in- 
excusable, and ‘‘professing themselves to be 
wise, they became fools,’’ 


II 


THE MANNER OF THE CREATION 
OF THE UNIVERSE t 


OW did God create the universe? Ac- 
H cording to the sacred books of the na- 
tions, the universe proceeds from chaos, 
whether this had been forever existing, or owed 
its being to an Infinite God. Pagan philosophers 
and scholars of Christian times have also gen- 
erally followed this point of doctrine. God, 
they said, created at first the chaotic or pri- 
mordial matter, or he made use of the same, 
already preéxisting from eternity, in order to 
make out of it the heavens and the earth. The 
evolutionist philosophers of our days admit na- 
turally enough the eternity of elementary mat- 
ter, whence through a slow evolution they 
produce everything, —the heavens, the earth, 
man, and if necessary even God himself. 
Christian thinkers hold more or less the fol- 
lowing opinion: God created at first out of 
nothing the elementary matter, described in the 
second verse of the first chapter of Genesis, out 
of which, later on, in six successive days or 
34 


Tas MANNER OF CREATION 35 


periods, he created the heavens, the earth, and 
all that is contained in them. Augustine thus 
sums up in his ‘‘Confessions’’ (Book xii, ch. 
20) the various interpretations which Christian 
doctors gave in his day of the two first verses 
of Genesis. ‘‘In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth’’; i. e., God made in his 
co-eternal Word intelligent and sensible crea- 
tures, spiritual and material. Another says: 
‘‘In the beginning God created the heaven and 
the earth’’; i. e., God made in his co-eternal 
Word all this immense edifice of the material 
world, with all the visible and known beings 
which it contains. Another follows this opin- 
ion and says: ‘‘God in his co-eternal Word 
made the shapeless and chaotic matter of the 
material world, that confusedly contained the 
heavens and the earth, which afterward being 
duly developed and ordered, offer now them- 
selves to our senses.’’ This last opinion, re- 
corded by Augustine, is that which, as I have 
said, is generally followed by Christian writers, 
—hbelievers in the Bible belonging to all 
churches. ‘‘God,’’ to use again another quo- 
tation by Augustine, ‘‘made, at first, the 
chaotic and elementary matter, an entity 
which contained in itself in a confused state 
the germs or seeds of heaven and earth, which 
in the course of time, having germinated and 


36 THrE BrieticaL Story oF CREATION 


grown, make now a beautiful show of them- 
selves with all the creatures that are in them.’’ 
(‘‘Confessions’’; ibid.) 

Now I ask if this is really the right inter. 
pretation of the first verse of Genesis: ‘‘In 
the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth.’? Did God verily create at first the 
elementary or chaotic matter, out of which, 
afterward, he constructed in six days or periods 
the heavens and the earth? We shall discuss 
the Biblical text later on; at present let us con- 
sider whether God really created chaos, or if 
he may possibly have created it. 

The elementary or shapeless matter, called 
also chaos by the Bible, is described as follows 
in the second verse of Genesis: ‘‘ And the earth 
was without form, and void; and darkness was 
upon the face of the deep.’’ Others translate: 
‘‘And the earth was empty and void, and dark- 
ness was upon the face of the deep.’’ And 
again: ‘‘And the earth was solitude, and ehaos 
and darkness covered the abyss.’’ The Septua- 
gint Greek Version of the Old Testament trans- 
lates the second verse as follows: *he de ge en 

* In view of the fact that this volume is intended for the gen- 
eral reader, the English transliterations of the Greek, Hebrew, 
or other languages do not include accents or other diacritical 


markings, the special significanee of which is familiar ehiefly 
to those who read the original languages. 


Tos MANNER OF CREATION 37 


aoratos kat akataskeuastos. ‘‘Now, as for the 
earth, it was wasteness and emptiness.’’ The 
sacred writer beheld the earth in wasteness and 
emptiness, shut up in gloom. Matter was there, 
but shapeless, formless, unconditioned. Over 
the earth materials, mingled with the waters of 
the deep (tes abussou), moved or brooded the 
Spirit of God. ‘‘The Hebrew word used here 
by the Bible,’? remarks Professor Minocchi, 
“is tohu vabohu, desolation and emptiness, as a 
kind of empty desert (tohw) or of an infinite 
dark space (bohu).. Yet immediately after- 
ward the primeval chaos is represented by the 
term tehom, which has the linguistic meaning 
of a stormy oceanic abyss, and which is simply 
the masculine form of the corresponding ex- 
pression Tsamat (Babylonian pronunciation 
of the Semitic Tihamat) of the Poem of Crea- 
tion, already quoted. The primeval tehom 
(abyss) comprehended the earth (the dry of 
verse 9) and the waters, i. e., all the present 
universe . . . but mixed up together, confused 
as in a horrible mud, in whose bosom all the 
possible germs of existence and life were dis- 
persed and smothered.’’ (Prof. S. Minocchi, 
‘‘Genesis.’’) 

All the ancient books of the nations record 
the Biblical chaos, and describe it more or less 


38 THe BrsuicAL Story oF CREATION 


in the same manner. We have a beautiful de- 
scription of it in Hesiod, from whom Ovid bor- 
rowed his own, which we still read in the first 
chapters of his ‘‘Metamorphoses.’’ But, as 
usually happens, poets as well as philosophers 
exaggerated and distorted the Biblical concep- 
tion of chaos. The chaos of the Babylonian, 
Vedic, Persian, Egyptian and Greek poets is by 
far stranger, more grotesque and horrible, than 
the Biblical chaos. Philosophers, besides, the 
Christian philosophers not excluded, have re- 
duced the chaos of the Bible to a kind of ‘‘ma- 
teria prima’’ of primeval matter of Aristotelian 
reminiscence, thus introducing metaphysics 
into the Bible, the fallible word of man in the 
midst of the infallible Word of God! 
According to the Bible, chaos possessed these 
exclusive characteristics: it was something 
dark, waste, confused, formless; it was earth 
and water mingled, in such a manner, however, 
that the abyss (Heb., tehom)—i. e., the dark 
waters—prevailed over the solid portion of 
chaos, which was entirely bound vp by the same. 
This, and only this, is the Biblical chaos: the 
condition of our universe as described in the 
second verse of the first chapter of Genesis. I 
will make a scientific analysis of it later on; 
but for the moment I will only add that, adher- 


THe MANNER OF CREATION 39 


ing closely to the Bible in the verse just quoted, 
and referring to other summary descriptions 
or allusions found in other books of Scripture, 
the chaotic state of the earth, as described in 
the second verse, may properly be compared 
to a colossal ruin, a cosmic destruction, a world- 
cataclysm, the efficient and concomitant cause 
of which was water, which submerged and 
drowned in its bosom an entire world. 

The chaos of Oriental poets and of metaphys- 
ical philosophers is absurd in itself and impos- 
sible, because it contains contradictory ele- 
ments. The ‘‘first matter’’ of Aristotle cannot 
exist by itself and in itself, being by defini- 
tion something which is ‘‘nec quid, nec quale, 
nec quantum,’’—i. e., without being, quality, 
and quantity. But the chaos of the second verse 
of Genesis not only is in itself possible and can 
exist, but it existed indeed, and perhaps for a 
long time. 

But was chaos, as described in Genesis, really 
the object of the divine creation? The answer 
is absolutely negative. It is absurd to think 
that God ever wished to create chaos or that he 
really did create it. Chaos is confusion, dark- 
ness, a disorderly mass of numberless things, 
drowned and buried in a dark ocean of muddy 
waters. God could never create such a thing. 


40 THe BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


The Greek interpreters of the Septuagint 
called the earth ‘‘akataskeuastos,’’ namely, not 
made in an orderly manner, not well distributed 
in its parts; made not according to art, hence 
chaotic and confused. Is it credible that God, 
the Infinite Artist of the universe, should have 
created something disorderly, inartistic, con- 
fused, chaotic? Being God, Infinite Order, 
Measure, Proportion, Beauty, he could not 
create wasteness, emptiness, gloominess, some- 
thing that has neither order, measure, propor- 
tion or beauty. Chaos contains characteristics 
that are absolutely antagonistic to God. We 
have no example in nature of anything which 
came into being with the characteristics attrib- 
uted to the Biblical chaos, or primeval matter. 

Everything that the earth produces is per- 
fect, complete, beautiful. See, for example, a 
leaf, a tree, a flower, an atom of matter, an 
animal, a crystal, a hail-stone, a snow-flake, a 
cloud, a sun-ray. Beauty, proportion, har- 
mony of parts are the constant and distinctive 
characteristics of nature. Order, beauty, and 
symmetry of parts accompany every created 
thing throughout the whole cycle of its exist- 
ence, from its cradle to the tomb. How beauti- 
ful is a vegetable seed, which in its rich and 
mysterious nature contains, though in micro- 


THe MANNER OF CREATION 41 


scopic dimensions, the whole tree! And like- 
wise how beautiful is an egg, oftentimes painted 
in the most glorious colors. How beautiful is a 
bud, a shoot of a tree; the tree in the full glory 
of its adult life, and generally also in its ma- 
jestic and decadent days, provided man does 
not interfere with its natural growth! And 
beautiful also is man in the various phases of 
his existence. A child is beautiful: beautiful 
are the boy and the girl: most beautiful the 
young man and the maid in the full bloom of 
their youth, provided they be born in a healthy 
condition and that through vices they destroy 
not their fair appearances. But man and 
woman are beautiful even in their old age, when 
about to complete the cycle of their earthly ex- 
istence. Why, then, should only the earth, nay 
the whole universe, have come into being ugly, 
disorderly, confused, chaotic? 

Observe, moreover, that when God proceeds 
to create, in six successive days, every thing in 
particular, he takes care to affirm that he ‘‘saw 
that it was good,’’ 1. e., perfect, beautiful, well 
proportioned, as the Hebrew word translated 
here ‘‘good’’ means all this. Marduk, likewise, 
the wise God and Creator in the Babylonian 
Poem of Creation, creates perfect and beauti- 
ful things, and he also makes them by virtue of 


42 THe BisuicaAL Story oF CREATION 


his word. God’s affirmation that his works 
were good,—i. e., beautiful, orderly, perfect,— 
is repeated each day of creation, the second 
only excepted, when the modern Hebrew text is 
silent about the praise. But the Septuagint 
Greek interpreters who translated the Hebrew 
Bible into Greek about 200 B. C. included the 
clause, ‘‘And God saw that it was good,’’ even 
at the end of the second day: and it is prob- 
able that the Hebrew text followed by them 
contained it. I believe that the Septuagint 
translation, often followed by our Lord and by 
the apostles, is to be preferred to the Masso- 
retic text used by modern Jews. 

God, therefore, created and still creates 
everything in a state of perfection: why, then, 
in the beginning, should he have created the 
universe in a state of desolation, of confusion, 
of disorder, of gloom, reserving to himself to 
impart to the same universe afterward order, 
proportion, symmetry, light, art, and beauty? 
This is, to my belief, inconceivable.\ As God 
does not create or cause moral disorder,—that 
is to say, sin,—so he cannot produce physical 
disorder: because, just as sin is disorder in 
spiritual creatures, so chaos is sin in the ma- 
terial universe. Sin, according to the Scrip- 
ture, results in the ‘‘second death,’’ whereas the 


THe MANNER OF CREATION 43 


death of the body is the first death. Both forms 
of death, according to the constant teaching of 
the Bible, both Old and New Testament, ‘‘en- 
tered into the world . . . by sin’’ (Rom. 5:12), 
whereas God has ‘‘no pleasure in the death of 
the wicked’’ (Ezek. 33:11). Death is the great- 
est of disorders in the physical order. Through 
death the body is disorganized, dissolved, de- 
prived of order, of symmetry, of beauty. A 
disintegrated corpse is, in the physical order, a 
small chaos; something confused, and horrible 
to behold. Now death, I repeat, is the effect 
of sin. Death, according to Paul, is the wages 
of sin. Where sin is, there is disorder, confu- 
sion, moral ugliness. Nor does sin stop in the 
soul only; from the soul it passes into the body; 
from the individual man it passes into society, 
into the body politic; from the spirit it passes 
into the soul. Man’s diseases are due either to 
the individual’s disorders, ignorances, or sins, 
or to the sins of parents, or finally to the first 
sin of our progenitors. In like manner, all the 
social disorders that trouble the communities 
of men, wars, revolutions, and the like are due 
simply to sin. 

If, therefore, in the first day of creation there 
was chaos, there must have been some sin, its 
primary cause. If, at the beginning of things, 


44 THe BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


a universe existed that was covered with dark- 
ness, confusion, embraced by destruction, im- 
mersed in the dark waters of an abysmal chaos, 
we may ask where sin was, and whose sin it 
was which caused all that. Who sinned, that 
the universe, created by God in perfect beauty, 
should be reduced to such a ruin? Who was the 
primary cause of such a disaster? To whom 
was the great cataclysm due, which changed a 
most beautiful world into a frightful chaos? 
Man certainly was not the cause of all this, be- 
cause man was not yet created. Who, then, 
was the primary cause of such a cosmic dis- 
aster? the pages that follow will give what the 
writer believes is the Scriptural answer to these 
questions. 

Isaiah, in his prophecy (45:18), records 
God’s words as follows: ‘‘For thus saith the 
Lord that created the heavens; God himself 
that formed the earth and made it; he hath 
established it, he created it not in vain [Heb., 
tohu]; he formed it to be inhabited: I am the 
Lord; and there is none else.’’ Note the sub- 
lime solemnity with which this passage opens 
and closes. God solemnly affirms that he did 
not create the earth waste, empty and disor- 
derly, but he formed it to be inhabited. These 
words in Isaiah are the key that will open the 


THe MANNER OF CREATION 45 


door of the right interpretation of the first and 
second verses of Genesis. 

God, through the mouth of his prophet, af- 
firms that he did not create the earth to be 
chaos, but to be inhabited. God therefore did 
not form the earth in a chaotic state, but in such 
a state as to be immediately habitable. Chaos, 
therefore, is due to another cause, not to God. 
Not a few modern writers, as for instance the 
contributor to the French Review, ‘‘La Revue 
Biblique,’’ hold the same view. ‘‘We cannot,’’ 
says one of them, ‘‘insist upon the creation of 
chaos: it is absurd to think that God created a 
matter absolutely shapeless and formless.”’ 
(Revue Biblique, 1896, p. 381.) 

If God did not create chaos, who, I ask again, 
was the cause of it? Who was the cause of that 
mighty disaster, of that appalling cataclysm, 
which reduced a beautiful world into a chaos? 
How can we reconcile the first and second 
verses of Genesis, which seem to attribute 
everything to God? 

To solve this interesting problem, we must 
compare the first two verses of Genesis with 
other passages of Scripture. As we have seen 
above, not a few interpretators in the days of 
Augustine (A. D. 400) explained the first verse 
in this manner: that God, in a first time or mo- 


46 THe BrsuicaL STrory oF CREATION 


ment of time, created heaven and earth in a 
state of completion and perfection, with all 
those ornaments and embellishments that were 
congenial to them; and in a second time God, 
in six days or periods, re-created or re-con- 
structed the earth, or better, our solar system, 
which, owing to a mysterious, appalling and 
sudden catastrophe, had fallen into the power 
of darkness, confusion, desolation, gloom, emp- 
tiness and chaos. Understood 1 in this sense the 
first verse, ‘‘God created the heavens and the 
earth,’’ does not refer at all to the elementary 
or chaotic matter described in the second verse, 
out of which he made everything: but it must 
be interpreted in its general and prima facte 
meaning; 1. e., as affirming that God, in a mo- 
ment, and without succession of days or periods, 
created the heavens and the earth in a perfect 
state and condition and adorned with all rich- 
ness and beauty. And we must add, that, be- 
tween the general creation affirmed in the first 
verse and the description of chaos in the second 
verse, there elapsed a long time, during which 
took place a general catastrophe of our world, 
and in consequence a new creation, or rather a 
reconstruction or restoration of the earth and 
of our solar system, according to the natural 


THe MANNER OF CREATION AT 


and obvious meaning of the first two verses of 
Genesis. | 

This interpretation of the first verses of 
Genesis was held and taught by many Christian 
writers in the days of Augustine: compara- 
tively few teach it now; yet, as I think, it is 
the only true interpretation of the Biblical story 
of the creation. Fifty years ago it was taught 
and defended against adverse criticism by 
Cardinal Wiseman, and long before him by the 
learned German scholar Dr. Rosenmiiller; un- 
fortunately they had no followers. As they 
were no scientists, their theory was rejected in 
the name of science. The present writer is a 
professor of Chemistry and a Geologist: and 


he challenges any scientist to maintain, in the | 


face of hard facts, the false theory of evolution. 
However, most Christian writers, still under the 
wrong impression that secular science, modern 
science, really knows something about the origin 
of the universe, endeavor to attune their Scrip- 
tural conclusions to the data of science falsely 
so-called,—without succeeding, however, in con- 
vincing scientists, and on the other hand giving 
infidels a just cause for amusement. The fact 
is, as Dr. Hummelauer among Roman Catholics 
and many other scholars among Protestants 
have conclusively proved, that a real accord 


48 THE BrsticaL STorY OF CREATION 


and harmony between the facts of the Bible and 
the claims of ‘‘science’’ does not exist and 
never will exist. If even Dr. Antony Stoppani, 
a believer in the Bible, a geologist of great 
learning, and a pronounced adversary of the 
false theory of evolution, did not succeed in 
bridging over the chasm intervening between 
the distinct affirmations of the Bible and the 
data of geology, botany, zoology, and astro- 
physics, who will ever hope to have success 
where he utterly failed? Biblical concordism, 
as all admit, has no chance of persuading any 
man of science. There remains, then, nothing 
except to study as deeply as possible the inter- 
pretation which was generally followed from 
the times of the apostles, and which afterward, 
much to the loss of Biblical studies, was aban- 
doned: that theory which at the time of Rosen- 
miller was called by common agreement: 
“‘ Restituttonism.’’ 

This interpretation is supported by a number 
of convincing reasons, of which the principal 
ones are here noted. First of all, the prima 
facie interpretation of the first verse of Gene- 
sis is that it means the creation on the part of 
God of the heavens and of the earth. We must 
take the words of the Bible as they are. The 
inspired writer does not say that in the begin- 


Tue MANNER OF CREATION 49 


ning God created the elementary or cosmic mat- 
ter, out of which, afterward he made heaven 
and earth: the Bible simply states that God in 
the beginning created the heavens and the 
earth. I wonder how Christian believers dare 
place an artificial interpretation on the clearest 
words of Genesis. They have no right to do so. 
The Bible says simply that God, in the begin- 
ning, created the heavens and the earth. What 
can those words mean? Elementary, primeval, 
and cosmic matter? By no means. The Scrip- 
ture evidently meant the heavens we see, in all 
their perfection and beauty, and the earth that 
we live upon. Why, then, give another and far- 
fetched interpretation to the first verse of 
Genesis? 

Moreover, no time is marked between the 
first, second and third verse of Genesis. The 
first day or period commences with the appear- 
ance of light, at the fifth verse. The first verse 
stands alone. God, in the beginning, in a first 
time, nay, at the beginning of all time, created 
the heavens and the earth in a perfect state and 
condition. The Septuagint interpreters trans- 
late the second verse in such a manner as to 
let us understand that between the first and 
second verses intervened a very long time; or 
at least, that between the five verses there was 

4 


50 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


a break, a literary gap, a suspension of mean- 
ing; that the narration of the creation of the 
heavens and the earth there stops in order to 
pass to something else, quite different. In fact, 
the second verse opens with an adversative par- 
ticle which the Greeks use when they want to 
distinguish one thing from another, or to op- 
pose a former to a latter: i. e., ‘‘but the earth 
was...’’ ‘‘now, as for the earth, it was....’’ 
(RE de gerry, 

Why did the Septuagint interpreters trans- 
late the Hebrew text in such a manner? Was it 
their intention to oppose to the heavens and the 
earth of the first verse, created in all the beauty 
and loveliness of God, the dark chaos of the 
second verse? This is very likely,—nay, as I 
believe, quite certain. If this is so, the obvious 
and natural meaning of the first verse is that 
God created the heaven and the earth at the 
beginning in a perfect state or physical condi- 
tion, complete in themselves, full of joy, beauty 
and loveliness. 

And this is clearly proved by the second 
chapter of Genesis, verses 4-6. We read: 

“These are the generations [origins] of the 
heavens and of the earth when they were cre- 
ated, in the day that the Lord God made the 
earth and the heavens, and every plant of the 


Tur MANNER OF CREATION ak 


field before it was in the earth, and every herb 
of the field before it grew: for the Lord God 
had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and 
there was not a man to till the ground., But 
there went up a mist from the earth, and wat- 
ered the whole face of the ground.’’ 

If these verses of Genesis have any meaning, 
they undoubtedly mean that the creation of the 
heavens and of the earth occurred in a single 
day, yes, in a single instant, and that the uni- 
verse appeared suddenly, in a state already of 
full growth, ripeness, beauty, loveliness, im- 
mortal youth. In fact, it is said very clearly 
that in a single day were created the heavens 
and the earth, and every plant and herb of the 
field appeared upon the earth. And in order 
to make it the more unmistakable and intelligi- 
ble, there is distinctly and positively excluded, 
from the range of possibility, the appearance of 
the plants and of the herbs as due to rain from 
the sky or from man’s work: because it had 
neither as yet rained upon the earth, nor had 
man yet been created. On the contrary, in the 
first chapter, verses 11-13, it is said that the 
grass, the herb, and the tree were brought forth 
from the earth the third day; how, then, does 
the sacred writer affirm here that the grass, the 
herb, the tree appeared in the same day when 


52 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


the heavens and the earth were created, in & 
day not numbered, the duration of which is 
not fixed, a day moreover, which has neither 
morning nor evening? 

How is all this to be explained? Is there, 
perchance, a flagrant contradiction between the 
whole first chapter, narrating the creation in 
six days, and the verses of the second chapter 
just quoted, narrating the appearance of grass 
and plants in the day when the heavens and the 
earth came into being? Some say that the first 
verse of the first chapter, as well as the above- 
mentioned verses of the second chapter, are but 
the summary of the first chapter. Others main- 
tain that they are due to different documents, 
of which the later redactors of Genesis made 
use, after the Exile, in the compilation of the 
book. Let us dismiss this latter modernistic 
view, because it is absurd, gratuitous, and a 
contradiction in terms. A decadent age, such 
as that which followed the Exile, could never 
have produced the masterpiece of Genesis; nor 
were the Jews that returned from Babylon so 
stupid as to accept, as a sacred and infallible 
narrative, the fabulous romance of a cunning 
priest. There remains the more respectable 
opinion which affirms that the aforesaid verses 


Tue MANNER OF CREATION 53 


are a duplicate or a summary of the first 
ehapter. 

But even this explanation must be excluded. 
In Genesis, especially in the first chapters, 
there are no repetitions of any kind. Every- 
thing is described with the greatest brevity and 
precision. Who is authorized to say that the 
first chapter had two summaries, one in chap- 
ter 1, verse 1, the other in chapter 2, verses 4- 
6? Besides, these latter verses do not contain 
a mere repetition of the fact of the creation of 
the heavens and of the earth. These are re- 
eorded only in order to insist on the fact that 
the plants and the herbs were created in a per- 
fect state and full grown in the same day in 
which the heavens and the earth were created. 
The sacred text insists on the unity of time 
when creation took place, and on the simultan- 
eousness of the divine action, and on the im- 
mediate origin from God of the plants and 
herbs which embellished the earth. In order, 
then, to demonstrate that the plants and herbs 
had not grown spontaneously and by them- 
selves in virtue of rain from the sky, or because 
man had sown and cultivated them, the sacred 
text states that no man was yet in existence 
who might have tilled the ground; finally, that 
the trees and the herbs appeared suddenly, in 


54 THE BIBLICAL Story of CREATION 


a day; in the same day, in fact, on which the 
heavens and the earth were created. It is im- 
possible to avoid the impression which the at- 
tentive reading of these verses makes on the 
spirit of the thoughtful reader: the universe 
came into being, most beautiful, most perfect, 
most orderly, in an instant, through the mighty 
power of an Infinite God. 

This impression is the more confirmed if we 
consider other passages of the Bible. There 
are a number in which it is said that the crea- 
tion of the heavens and of the earth took place 
in an instant, and that the universe, from its 
very beginning, was perfect and complete. 
These Scripture passages induced many learned 
Jews, before and after Christ, to follow the 
interpretation which I am setting forth. 
Among them should be mentioned Philo, who 
taught this for many years. He was followed 
in the same path by the great Origen and his 
school, and later on by Augustine, Abelardus, 
Alcuinus, Scotus Erigena, Cardinal Cajetan, 
Melchior Canus, and many others who, how- 
ever, gave to creation a symbolical rather than 
a historical meaning. 

To review what we have seen, therefore, 
verses 4, 5, 6 of the second chapter of Genesis 
are not a mere repetition or a summary of the 


Tue MANNER OF CREATION 55 


first chapter; they are an explanation of the 
first verse of the first chapter; they give it a 
richer meaning and value. For if the first 
verse, ‘‘In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth,’’ does not signify just 
what it expresses, what is its meaning? If it 
does not mean the creation of the universe in 
all its beauty, splendor and loveliness, what 
does it mean? Certainly not elementary or 
cosmic matter, much less chaos. The earth, the 
sea, the firmament, the sun, the moon, the stars, 
the plants, the animals were created in succes- 
sive days: what, then, was created in the be- 
ginning, when no mention has yet been made of 
time? 

Let us conclude this chapter by saying: the 
heavens and the earth were created, all to- 
gether, in a single instant, in the beginning, in 
the most ancient time, or rather before time, 
by the co-eternal Word of God. They were 
created in a state and condition of beauty, per- 
fection and loveliness. The first verse of Gene- 
sis stands alone. It is explained by the 4th, 
5th and 6th verses of the second chapter. Be- 
tween the first creation, indicated by the first 
verse, and the description of chaos of the sec- 
ond verse, there occurred a cosmic catastrophe, 
an appalling cataclysm of worlds, whereby not 


56 THe BIBLICAL SToRY OF CREATION 


only our earth was broken up into fragments, 
but even the solar system was displaced, com- 
mingling with the earth, and the whole world 
became a confused mass of heterogeneous ele- 
ments, a dark, waste and formless chaos. Gene- 
sis does not narrate the appalling catastrophe; 
it postulates it as known; but other books of 
Scripture allude very clearly to it. And the 
record of the catastrophe has remained and lin- 
gered on for centuries and centuries in the im- 
agination of the Gentiles, who have mentioned 
it in their sacred books and poems. 


iit 


CREATION OF THE ANGELS, AND THEIR 
REBELLION AGAINST GOD 


ANY interpreters of the first verses of 
M Genesis have put the question, why did 

not the inspired writer, narrating the 
creation of the heavens and of the earth, men- 
tion the creation of the angels, of whose exis- 
tence the Bible is full, and whose creation the 
ancient Hebrews always attributed to the Al- 
mighty God? 

To this question various answers have been 
given. Many Christian teachers, before and 
after Augustine, believed that the angels were 
included in the general creation indicated in 
the first verse: ‘‘In the beginning God created 
the heavens and the earth.’’ As the Hebrew 
word for heaven is plural, so many interpreters 
believed that one of those heavens, or orna- 
ments of that heaven, created by God, were the 
angels, whom the ancient Hebrews called 
Elohim, or sons of God. They were believed 
to be intellectual creatures, endowed with 
lofty and sublime minds, living in a supernat- 

57 


58 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


ural world, obedient servants and trusty mes- 
sengers of Jahwe. 

Others, on the contrary, think that the crea- 
tion of the angels is presupposed in the first 
verse, not narrated; and this because of a cer- 
tain allusion to angels, found in the first verse 
of Chapter 2, where it is said: ‘‘Thus the 
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the 
host of them.’’ The Hebrew has sabha espe- 
cially used of military ranks, an army. With 
Orientals this term sabha (host, army), was 
used in a polytheistic sense; they said it of les- 
ser gods, who they believed existed in each 
single star, at the service of the greater gods, 
dwelling in the planets. This heavenly host, 
with the Hebrews, were the angels, who, as well 
as man, were God’s creatures. Scholars and 
Orientalists know quite well that in the East 
it was a general belief that the stars, the sun, 
and the planets were the celestial abodes of 
quasi-divine beings, that is, of angels, who had 
the care of them, preserved them from mis- 
haps, and guided them in their giddy races 
across the heavens. The same Orientalists can 
tell us that these angels, often in the Scripture 
called the host of heaven, only ruled a star or a 
group of stars, but were, under God, the mas- 
ters of the same. Thus Dante describes those 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 59 


angels, whom he paints in glowing colors, as 
presiding over the seven spheres of heaven; 
and in so doing he declares that the union of the 
angel with his star or group of stars is so inti- 
mate, so close, that the two make but one thing, 
and the two natures, the material and the spir- 
itual, amalgamate into one. 

Nor had the ancient Hebrews a different 
opinion. For in the Bible the host of heaven 
are the angels, good and bad, represented by 
the stars which they rule, and whose worship is 
vehemently and constantly condemned by the 
prophets of Israel. Such passages are well 
known. ‘Two will suffice here. ‘‘Hear, thou, 
therefore, the word of the Lord,’’ said the 
prophet Micaiah to Ahab. ‘‘I saw the Lord 
sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven 
standing by him on his right hand and on his 
left’? (1 Kings 22:19). God, likewise, thus 
speaks to Job out of the whirlwind: ‘‘Who is 
this that darkeneth counsel by words without 
knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; 
for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. 
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations 
of the earth? declare, if thou hast understand- 
ing. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if 
thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line 
upon it? Whereupon are the foundations 


60 THe BreuicAL STORY oF CREATION 


thereof fastened? or who laid the cornerstone 
thereof; when the morning stars sang to- 
gether, and all the sons of God shouted for 
joy?’’ The morning stars are certainly identi- 
cal with the sons of God of the second part of 
the hemistich, this being the rule in Hebrew 
poetry. All the ancient Christian teachers in- 
terpreted the word ‘‘morning stars’’ as refer- 
ring to the angels, called stars of the morning, 
because they had been created by God at the 
dawn of creation, before the creation of the ma- 
terial universe. On the evening of that day 
took place the destruction of the earth, de- 
scribed in the second verse, before God pro- 
nounced the portentous word wherewith (i. e., 
through his Word, who is Light), he illumined 
the darkness of chaos. 

When we say that the creation of the heavens 
and of the earth described in the first verse of 
Genesis, had taken place in no definite time, 
we mean that it was then morning; it was the 
glory of God, the kingdom of light, which in the 
Scripture is a symbol of beauty, of order, of 
divine grace; whereas darkness is a symbol of 
moral disorder, of ugliness, of sin, of Satanic 
power. To this must be referred a most ancient 
tradition, recorded several times by Dante in 
his immortal poem, narrating that the universe 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 61 


had come into being at springtime, thus signi- 
fying its vigor, its youth, its beauty, its glorious 
life, such, in fact, as it came forth from the 
hands of a beautiful and immortal Artist, the 
Supreme Ruler and Architect of the universe. 
God, therefore, created the heavens and the 
earth, and he created also an almost infinite 
number of spiritual beings, of high minds, 
noble, sublime, by far more intelligent than 
man, whose principal characteristics, accord- 
ing to the Bible, are ‘‘wisdom and strength.”’ 
Although angels be pure spirits,—that is, bodi- 
less beings,—yet they can often assume a visible 
form and thus appear to men. Their number 
is well nigh infinite; their strength and power 
almost limitless. As noted above, the angels 
preside over the movements of the material 
heavens, lest these should deviate from the path 
which God fixed for them. According to Scrip- 
ture, stars, planets, nations and individual 
men are given in custody to angels, who may do 
with them what they please, always, however, 
under the will of God. The union of the angel 
with the star he presides over is moreover, ac- 
cording to Dante, so intimate and close that the 
two beings make but one. The stellar heaven 
described by Dante was presided over by a 
cherub, and all the other heavens, and all the 


62 Tue BrsticaAL Story oF CREATION 


terraces of purgatory, were guarded by angels 
who presided over them. 

The angels were created in a state of perfect 
freedom of will, as God himself is absolutely 
free and the very source and infinite fountain 
of moral liberty. In consequence angels also, 
like men, can sin, can deviate from the path of 
righteousness and of the divine law under 
which, of necessity, they were created, because 
no being whatever comes into existence except 
under the dominion of law. The Bible states 
that the angels sinned; that they freely violated 
the law imposed upon them by Almighty God, 
thus changing into evil angels and falling from 
their high estate of holiness and light. The 
existence of wicked spirits, called devils, de- 
mons or Satans,—i. e., tempters,—is affirmed 
everywhere in the Bible; it was accepted and 
acted upon by our Lord Jesus Christ, and it 
was likewise admitted by all Oriental cosmolo- 
gies. 

As the Bible narrates the temptation and the 
fall of the first man, so it tells us of the fall of 
the rebellious angels. The prophets Isaiah and 
Ezekiel, under the symbols of the wicked kings 
of Babylon and Tyre, describe the sin and the 
ruinous fall of the fairest star of the morning; 
of that sublime angel who, from being the chief 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 63 


and leader of all angels, became the chief and 
leader of all rebellious spirits against God. 
The two prophets certainly meant also the two 
kings of Babylon and Tyre, living in their 
days; but the images which they use in their 
prophecies, the phraseology and the ideas which 
they attribute to them, reach much farther, and 
are more applicable to Lucifer, the morning 
star, the rebel against God, than to the two im- 
pious kings of Babylon and Tyre. Thus be- 
lieved and taught many Christian thinkers of 
antiquity, and even some rationalistic commen- 
tators of the Bible take the same view now. 
‘‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Luci- 
fer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down 
to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend 
into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the 
stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount 
of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; 
I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be 
brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. 
They that see thee shall narrowly look upon 
thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man 
that made the earth to tremble, that did shake 
kingdoms; that made the world as a wilder- 
ness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that 


64. THe BreticaAL STORY OF CREATION 


opened not the house of his prisoners?’’ (Isa. 
14: 12-16). 

And Ezekiel thus speaks of the king of Tyre: 
‘“Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart 
is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I 
sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; 
yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou 
set thine heart as the heart of God: . . . Be- 
hold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, 
the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw 
their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, 
and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall 
bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die 
the deaths of them that are slain in the midst 
of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that 
slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a 
man, and no God, in the hand of him that slay- 
eth thee... Thus saith the Lord God; Thou 
sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect 
in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden 
of God; every precious stone was thy covering, 
the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, 
the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the em- 
erald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the work- 
manship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was 
prepared in thee in the day that thou wast cre- 
ated. Thou art the anointed cherub that cov- 
ereth; and I have set thee so; thou wast upon 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 65 


the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked 
up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day 
that thou wast created, till iniquity was found 
in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise 
they have filled the midst of thee with violence, 
and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee 
as profane out of the mountain of God: and 
I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from 
the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was 
lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast cor- 
rupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: 
I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee 
before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou 
hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of 
thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; 
therefore will I bring forth a fire from the 
midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will 
bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight 
of all them that behold thee. All they that know 
thee among the people shall be astonished at 
thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt 
thou be any more’”’ (Hzek. 28: 2-19). 

Who is this star of the morning, this anointed 
cherub that covereth and liveth upon the holy 
mountain of God, dressed in all the most beau- 
tiful precious stones of God? All the ancient 
Christian teachers saw in him that sublime 

5 


66 THe BisticaAL Story oF CREATION 


angel, that most high cherub, the chief of angels 
and perhaps their king, who rebelled against 
God, drew after him through deceit a third 
part of the stars of heaven, and, being banished 
from heaven, fell down headlong upon the 
earth. ‘‘I saw,’’ says John in the Revelation, 
‘‘a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and 
to him was given the key of the bottomless pit 

. and they [the demons] had a king over 
them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, 
whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, 
but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apol- 
lyon’’ (Rev. 9:1, 11). 

Elsewhere John describes the sin and fall of 
Satan: ‘‘And there appeared another wonder 
in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, hav- 
ing seven heads and ten horns, and seven 
crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the 
third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast 
them to the earth: ... And there was war in 
heaven: Michael and his angels fought against 
the dragon; and the dragon fought and his 
angels, and prevailed not; neither was their 
place found any more in heaven. And the great 
dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called 
the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole 
world: he was cast out into the earth, and his 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 67 


angels were cast out with him”’ (Rev. 12:8, 4, 
7-9). 

This marvelous narrative is not a myth nor 
an Hastern legend—it is the story of what hap- 
pened in heaven before the creation of man; 
a story confirmed by the Infinite God in the per- 
son of Jesus when he said: ‘‘I beheld Satan as 
lightning fall from heaven’’ (Luke 10:18). 
Jesus had sent seventy of his disciples to 
preach throughout the land of Palestine the 
coming of the kingdom. ‘‘And the seventy re- 
turned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the 
devils are subject unto us through thy name.’’ 
And Jesus replied with the mysterious words 
just quoted, which mean: ‘‘You must not be 
surprised that even the demons, cast out by 
you in my name, flee from their habitations in 
the bodies of men. In my pre-mundane exist- 
ence, when I was with the Father, I witnessed 
as a spectator the defeat of Satan, who, con- 
quered by Michael and his angels, fell as light- 
ning from heaven.’’ 

The Greek word theoreo signifies to see, to 
witness, to assist as a spectator at some spec- 
tacle. The spectacle was the war fought in 
heaven and won by Michael and his angels 
against Lucifer, the morning star, the conse- 
crated cherub of Isaiah and Ezekiel. As every 


68 THe BrBLicAL SToRY OF CREATION 


word pronounced by Jesus has a profound 
meaning, it is not without grave reason that he 
compared the fall of Satan to the fall of light- 
ning. Where lightning falls, it brings ruin, and 
the more powerful the flash, the greater the 
ruin caused by it. Where did the lightning de- 
scribed by Jesus strike if not upon the earth? 
And what ruin did it not produce? 

All the more, that not only Satan fell on the 
earth, but all his angels with him. How many 
were they? Who could count them? They 
were, say the Scriptures, a third part of the 
stars, that is, of the angels of heaven. Who 
has ever succeeded in counting the stars of 
heaven? Modern astronomy reckons them by 
millions and millions: and the Scriptures sug- 
gest, as I have already said, that every star, 
every planet, every element, and under certain 
conditions, every man has an angel deputed as 
guardian. Then how many good angels are 
there? Who can count them? Well, a third 
part of the angels, seduced by Satan, changed 
from angels of light to angels of darkness or 
demons, and transformed the noble gifts of 
their lofty intellects into hatred, envy and jeal- 
ousy toward God who drove them out of heaven. 

But it is vain ‘‘to pit oneself against fate,’’ 
as Dante says. As they could accomplish noth- 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 69 


ing against God, these miserable creatures 
vented their malice upon the earth, where they 
fell in millions, or rather in hundreds of mil- 
lions. That disastrous fall produced a world- 
cataclysm. Our solar system was convulsed, 
disembowelled, and reduced to chaos—confu- 
sion, darkness, complete disorder. The sun, 
the planets and the moon were veiled and 
drowned in the upper waters of the heaven, 
which were precipitated like colossal ava- 
lanches on the earth, and became mingled, or at 
least partly so, with its seas and oceans. The 
earth, receiving such a weight of waters, lost 
its center of gravity, was split up, broken and 
reduced to fragments. The plants and animals, 
in which the earth was very rich, perished all 
together with a sudden and violent death; were 
plunged in seas of mud and remained buried 
and imprisoned under the rocks, while other 
lands, other chains of mountains, other conti- 
nents were buried under the immense pressure 
of the floods. Where the poles had been, ap- 
peared the equator; and the lands beneath the 
equator were driven to the poles; or, rather, 
there were at that time neither poles nor equa- 
tor but an almost infinite mass of dead matter, 
dark and inert. We speak of the most im- 
mense catastrophe that ever befell the universe, 


70 Tue BrsuicaAL Story oF CREATION 


for it was the shattering and destruction of a 
portion of it. The entire solar system was 
plunged into chaos. 

I speak of the solar system, not the stellar 
system, for in the Scriptures we read that Sa- 
tan fell to earth from the heaven of the stars. 
This heaven remained intact and did not suffer 
at all. I have shown in another place that in the 
center of the stars there are very many centers 
of gravity, or centers of stars which are con- 
tinually changing place according to laws un- 
known to us, and these stellar centers are en- 
tirely independent one of the other. Besides 
this, the earth, according to the true conception 
of the ancients, did not comprehend our planet 
only, but embraced also the sun, the moon and 
the planets. This is our world. The heaven 
of the stars, said the ancient Babylonians and 
Hebrews, had nothing to do with us, at least 
apparently. That it is really so is a certainty; 
at least it is admitted by all modern astrono- 
mers. Our earth, in fact, exists and lives under 
the influence of the sun, the moon, and perhaps 
the planets, as the Babylonians and astrologers 
of all times and countries have admitted; but 
the stars belong to other worlds, infinitely di- 
verse, infinitely far off. For this reason also, 
the Babylonians, the Hebrews, and the ancient 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 71 


Greeks had one name only for both fixed stars 
and planets, because they studied particularly 
the planets and not the fixed stars. 

Thus all our creation suffered through the 
rebellion of the angels; and still suffers, wait- 
ing with earnest expectation ‘‘for the manifes- 
tation of the sons of God. For the creature 
was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but 
by reason of him who hath subjected the same 
in hope, because the creature itself also shall 
be delivered from the bondage of corruption 
into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 
For we know that the whole creation groaneth 
and travaileth in pain together until now,’’ so 
says Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (8: 19- 
23). Satan then reduced the creation to servi- 
tude, and then, after the creation of man, the 
earth was again cursed by reason of sin (Gen. 
3:17-19). Thus the revolt against God passed 
from heaven to earth; from the order of spirit 
to the order of matter—and this to show the 
wonderful unity and concatenation of all that 
is created. 

I have reserved for the rest of this chapter 
two considerations of great weight, which I 
will expound as clearly as possible, to show that 
the theory which I defend is the only true one. 

Peter in his Second Hpistle writes: ‘‘For 


12 THE BIBLICAL SToRY OF CREATION 


this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the 
word of God the heavens were of old, and the 
earth standing out of the water and in the 
water: whereby the world that then was, being 
overflowed with water, perished: but the heav- 
ens and the earth, which are now, by the same 
word are kept in store, reserved unto fire 
against the day of judgment and perdition of 
ungodly men’’ (2 Pet. 3:5-7). These words of 
Peter are generally interpreted as alluding to 
the flood. But this is not the case. They de- 
scribe the destruction of the earth which hap- 
pened in very ancient times (ekpalar), or in the 
first times, which he places in contradistinction 
to the latter times, when the heavens, or our 
heaven and earth, will perish by fire in the day 
of judgment, thence to return once more to the 
beautiful heaven and earth of the primal crea- 
tion. For Peter himself, together with Paul 
and John, exhorts us to look for new heavens 
and a new earth, in which dwelleth righteous- 
ness, after ‘‘the heavens being on fire shall be 
dissolved, and the elements shall melt with 
fervent heat’’ (2 Pet. 3:12, 13). The time of 
the flood was not called by the apostles ekpalai, 
neither was it placed in contradistinction to 
the latter days. Besides, at the time of the 
flood the earth did not perish at all, for there is 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 73 


no mention in the Bible either of earthquakes 
or volcanoes or other cataclysms then, but only 
of heavy rain, apparently without wind; more- 
over the earth after a few months of being 
flooded became once more habitable, therefore 
it was not entirely destroyed. The earth was 
destroyed and perished only at the beginning 
of the creation. 

And not only did the earth perish, but Peter 
affirms categorically that the world of that time 
perished,—ille tunc mundus, as the Vulgate 
translates from the Greek words ‘‘ho tote 
kosmos.’’ The cosmos of that time perished, 
or rather the solar system, the world, the uni- 
verse, the heaven, all that in the Greek lan- 
guage is signified by the word kosmos. Let us 
also observe the wonderful structure of the 
words by which Peter describes the heavens 
and the earth which perished: ‘‘By the word of 
God,’’ he says, ‘‘the heavens were of old, and 
the earth standing out of the water and in the 
water.’’ These words describe exactly the 
heavens and the earth of the first creation. The 
earth still emerges from the water and subsists 
in water; the Vulgate translates ‘‘terra, de 
aqua et per aqua consistens.’’ This last word 
comes from the Greek verb suntstemt, which 
means to place, consist, form, come from, be 


74 THE BrIsLIcAL STORY OF CREATION 


born. The English Bible well translates these 
words: ‘‘standing out of the water and in the 
water.’’ Is not this the most exact definition 
of our earth as it is at present? And are not 
the words of Peter the best comment on the first 
verse of Genesis, ‘‘In the beginning God cre- 
ated the heaven and the earth?’’ 

According to Peter, then, the world of that 
time perished. In what way did it perish? 
Submerged in the waters, replies Peter; and 
he used the Greek word katakluzo, which means 
to inundate, to flood, to submerge. The Vulgate 
translates ‘‘mundus aqua wmundatus perut.’’ 
The English Bible and all the translations: 
‘‘the world that then was, being overflowed 
with water, perished.’’ These words describe 
the earth of the second verse of the first chap- 
ter of Genesis: the world which was overflowed 
with water and perished described by Peter is 
‘‘the earth become desolate and chaotic and 
with darkness upon the face of the deep,’’ de- 
scribed in Genesis. As has already been said, 
during the Biblical chaos the waters prevailed 
and wrapped the earth as in an ocean of dark- 
ness (tehom): and in the same way Peter tells 
us clearly that the earth perished on account of 
the water. The apostle, then, does not here 
speak of the flood, but of the immense cataclysm 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 75 


in which in the beginning of time the world per- 
ished, or rather our heaven and our earth. 

If another proof is necessary to show that 
this is the real meaning of the words of Peter, 
read what he writes with regard to the flood, 
in the second chapter of the same Epistle: 
‘God spared not the old world, but saved Noah 
the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, 
bringing in the flood upon the world of the un- 
godly.’’ The world (Gr., kosmos) of the un- 
godly is used in the sense of humanity, or 
rather evil men. 

Thus Peter teaches the doctrine of the gen- 
eral creation, in the first days, of heaven and 
earth in a state of perfection; he reminds us 
of the destruction of the cosmos, or our world, 
submerged beneath the waters; and he con- 
trasts this primeval destruction with the last 
one, which will take place after the last judg- 
ment, only no longer by means of water but by 
means of fire. This is the true, the only true 
interpretation of the first verses of Genesis. 

But that is not all. If some other proof were 
necessary to demonstrate this, the Holy Scrip- 
tures offer us one which admits of no refuta- 
tion. It is an analogical proof, but the analo- 
gies of Scripture have the value of reality. 


76 THE BrpuicaAu Story oF CREATION 


Material things are symbols, parables of the 
spiritual. 

As material light signifies divine grace, 
order, and spiritual beauty, so darkness signi- 
fies sin, spiritual disorder, the bad angels, Sa- 
tan. ‘‘This is your hour, and the power of dark- 
ness,’’ said Jesus to the high priests and cap- 
tains of the temple and the elders who had gone 
to arrest him. It was night then, and the ma- 
terial darkness signified that the evil spirits in 
that sad hour were triumphant. And later on, 
while Christ was dying on the cross, the earth 
was darkened, the sun being obscured (Luke 
23), to manifest the eclipse which was momen- 
tarily suffered by the Sun of righteousness, 
and the temporary triumph of Lucifer. Gene- 
sis, which passes over in silence the rebellion 
of the angels and the destruction of the solar 
world caused by them, on the other hand de- 
scribed minutely the creation, the temptation, 
and the fall and redemption of the first human 
couple. 

Adam and Eve were created in a state of 
grace; healthy, vigorous, beautiful, friends of 
God, one might say his guests, in the garden of 
delight. Satan tempted them, and they fell. 
Their sin was followed by the loss of the grace 
of God, the loss of the knowledge with which 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 17 


they had been endowed by God, the loss of im- 
mortality, the loss of the earthly paradise, and 
they were condemned instead to toil, to the 
pains of child-birth, to servitude, to disease, and 
to death. The beautiful creation of God had 
become, like the primitive earth, empty of di- 
vine gifts, confused, disordered, a chaos of mis- 
ery and death. But just as God, after chaos, 
pronounced the fateful words, ‘‘Let there be 
light,’’? and there was light, so God, after the 
entrance of sin into the world, promised the 
two sinners a future Redeemer, thus restoring 
to grace human nature, deformed and corrupted 
by sin. 

The analogy between the material creation, 
the destruction and consequent material recon- 
struction of our world, and the creation, spirit- 
ual fall, and subsequent restoration of the first 
human couple, is complete. The first is the 
symbol of the second, and the latter throws a 
flood of light on the former. The light which 
illumined the darkness of the primitive chaos 
is a type of Christ the Light that shines in the 
darkness and lightens every man that comes 
into the world as the slave of Satan, oppressed 
by darkness. There are also to be considered 
the words of the apostle John, that disciple who 
had drunk at the fountain of wisdom itself,— 


78 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


the words with which he begins his Gospel. 
These are evidently based upon the words in 
the beginning of Genesis. There the material 
creation is referred to; here the spiritual crea- 
tion. There the universe comes into existence 
by means of the Word; here the new creature 
enters upon a new life through the grace of 
Christ. There the dark ocean, the abyss, the 
‘‘tehom’’ which oppresses the primitive crea- 
tion; here, the light which is Christ, who 
shines in the darkness, and who fights against 
the darkness, because it will not receive him. 
The abyss, the tehom of the primitive crea- 
tion, is the dragon of the chaos, the ‘‘ Tiamat’’ 
of the Babylonians, Satan; the darkness spoken 
of by John, which refuses to depart at the com- 
mand of the Light, is the Devil, that old serpent 
who seduced the first man in the earthly para- 
dise. But the victory remains with the 
stronger, that is, with the Infinite God. Our 
solar world, ruined by Lucifer, was recon- 
structed in six days; the human generation, 
led astray by the Devil, is saved by Christ. 
‘““And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory 
as of the only begotten of the Father), full of 
grace and truth’’ (John 1:14). The analogy 
of the first chapter of the Gospel of John with 


ANGELS AND THEIR REBELLION 79 


the first verses of Genesis is complete. The 
reader will understand this better when he has 
read the following chapters. 


IV 


REVOLT OF ANGELS AND PERIOD 
OF CHAOS, IN OTHER ANCIENT 
DOCUMENTS 


HE revolt of the angels in heaven against 

God, their expulsion from the abode of 

bliss, and their fall upon the earth, is not 
a myth, a legend, a parable. It is a fact, although 
not linked to humanity. It is attested by the Old 
and New Testaments, by the prophets Isaiah 
and Ezekiel, by John, and above all by our Lord 
Jesus Christ. But there are other witnesses to 
this fact; they are of great importance, and it 
will not do to pass them over in silence. 

The first of these is the holy patriarch Enoch, 
the seventh from Adam, son of Jared and 
father of Methuselah. This patriarch enjoyed 
great fame in ancient times, when it was be- 
lieved that authentic writings from his hands 
were available. A few years ago a book was 
discovered, the book of Enoch, which, having 
been well known and highly esteemed in the 
early days of Christianity, had later on been 
lost sight of, and finally utterly forgotten. 

80 


ANGELS AND CHAOS IN OTHER DocumMENTsS 81 


Some believe that the redaction or compilation 
of this book, now in Greek, may be traced to a 
few centuries before Christ; and that its origi- 
nal was Hebrew, not Syriac or Greek. 

Now a book of Enoch was explicitly quoted 
as Scripture by all the writers of the New Tes- 
tament, beginning from Jude, James’ brother, 
who records a sentence of Enoch in his Epistle. 
Phrases of, or allusions to, the same book are 
found in the Epistles of Peter, James, John, 
Paul, in Revelation, in the Acts of the Apostles, 
and in the four Gospels, none excepted. It is 
evident that Enoch’s book was held in high 
esteem and enjoyed a great reputation with 
those inspired writers; in fact, Tertullian 
states that in his days Hmoch’s book was gen- 
erally believed to be inspired. The same opin- 
ion was entertained by the writer of the so- 
called letter of Barnabas, by Justin Martyr, 
Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, 
and many others. The Jews rejected it be- 
cause, as Tertullian says, Enoch too clearly 
foretold the first and second advents of the 
Messiah. 

Among other admirable prophecies contained 
in that book, there is one intimately connected 
with our subject. It is a vision, which is found 
in Section IV, Paragraph 83 of the book, where 

6 


82 Tue BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


the holy patriarch imparts instructions and ad- 
monitions to the members of his family. ‘‘And 
now, my son Methuselah, I will show thee all 
my visions which [I have seen, recounting them 
before thee. Two visions I saw before I took 
a wife, and the one was quite unlike the other; 
on the first occasion when I was learning to 
write, on the second, before I took thy mother, 
I saw a terrible vision, and concerning them I 
prayed to the Lord. I had laid me down in the 
house of my grandfather Mahalaleel, when I 
saw in a vision how the heaven collapsed, and 
was borne off and fell to the earth. And when 
it fell to the earth, I saw how the earth was 
swallowed up in a great abyss, and mountains 
hung suspended on mountains, and hills sank 
down on hills, and high trees were rent from 
the stems and hurled down and sunk in the 
abyss. And thereupon utterance came into my 
mouth, and J lifted up my voice to cry aloud, 
and said: the earth is destroyed!’’ (Charles, 
R. H., The Book of Enoch, Oxford, 1893.) 
When we read this vision of Enoch, it is im- 
possible not to think of the great catastrophe 
that followed the rebellion and fall of the 
wicked angels; a revolt which, having been re- 
vealed by God to the first men, made such an 
impression on them as to cause them to hand it 


ANGELS AND CHAOS IN OTHER DocuMENTS 83 


down to their distant descendants, who, in their 
turn, recorded it in their poems and books, some 
of which have come down to us. It will not be 
thought amiss to mention a few of them. 
First, as to antiquity, comes the already 
quoted Babylonian Poem on Creation, written 
not many years after Noah’s death. This poem, 
ealled the Poem of Creation, ought rather to be 
called the poem of the revolt of the dragon of 
chaos, or demons, against the gods of order, 
because such it really is. In many things it so 
closely follows the Bible that the reader is often 
amazed. But that is not all. When we read at 
the end of the poem the strange description of 
the imprisonment, torments, death and resur- 
rection of Bel-Marduk, creator of heaven and 
earth, we are inclined to ask how could the 
Babylonians, 2,000 years before Christ, con- 
ceive and write such a poem, which is a clear 
anticipation of Christ’s sufferings, death and 
resurrection. The only plausible answer is 
that the Babylonians recounted, concerning the 
primitive revolt of the angels and subsequent 
destruction of the earth, the tradition received 
from the just Noah and his children, the former 
having been dead a few years only, the latter 
still living. As to the passion, death and resur- 
rection of Bel-Merodach (also spelled Marduk), 


84. Tuer BrBuicaAL Story or CREATION 


they derived it from the book of Enoch. The 
Babylonian Poem of Creation is divided into 
six books, of which I give the summary. ‘The 
translation is the recent one by Dr. S. Langdon 
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923). 

It will not be out of place to record what 
Genesis says about the foundation of Babylon. 
The epic was undoubtedly written in the period 
of the first Babylonian dynasty, 2225-1926 B. C. 
Some years before, Nimrod had laid the foun- 
dation of the Babylonian monarchy. It must 
have been the year 2234 B. C. ‘*And Cush,’’ 
says the Bible, ‘‘begat Nimrod: he began to be 
a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty 
hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, 
Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the 
Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was 
Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in 
the land of Shinar’’ (Gen. 10: 8-10). I need not 
bring to the mind of the reader that Cush, 
Nimrod’s father, was Ham’s son. 

In the beginning, says the poem, only Apsu, 
the fresh water ocean (male) and Tiamat, the 
salt water ocean (female), existed. They were 
mingled in one. Together with these two, an- 
other dragon is described in the poem, which 
is called Mummu (mind, word), and acts as 
Apsu’s messenger. Apparently, the first rebel- 


ANGELS AND CHAOS IN OTHER DocuMENTS 85 


lion of the angels has already taken place: here 
the poem describes the resistance which the 
dragons of chaos, or cosmic disorder, opposed 
to God, who wanted to reduce it to order and 
expel the dragons from it. Apsu, Tiamat, and 
Mummu are the dragons, i. e., the demons of 
chaos; the poem even describes them as chaos 
itself,—disorderly, confused, dark. These mon- 
sters of chaos engender Lahmu and Lahamu, 
and after many ages, Ansar (Assur) and Kisar 
make their appearance on the scene of the great 
epic. Ansar and Kisar are the first of the gods 
of order; they engender Anu the heaven-god 
and Ka the water-god. It must be observed 
here that these two gods are respectively called 
gods of heaven and of water by anticipation, 
because, in the beginning, there was no heaven; 
and as to water, only the two oceans, personi- 
fied by Apsu and Tiamat, existed. The heaven 
and the waters above the heaven, 1. e., Anu and 
Ea, appeared in their special characters only 
after the war of the dragons against the gods 
of order and their final defeat. The analogy 
between Genesis (which speaks of the firma- 
ment, and of gathering the waters that are 
under the heaven unto one place, only when 
darkness is defeated and expelled from chaos), 


86 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


and this part of the Babylonian poem, could 
not be more evident. 

The poem proceeds to describe how the gods 
of order, wishing to put order into chaos, find 
a natural resistance on the part of the dragons 
of chaos, which accordingly repulse them. It 
is the beginning of the war which forms the 
subject matter of the poem. War is practically 
declared between the monsters of chaos and the 
gods of order. The Babylonian epic is highly 
mythical and fanciful, but the Biblical tradi- 
tion is still perceptible under the veils of myth- 
ological allegory. Apsu declares to Tiamat his 
wish to destroy the gods; Tiamat contradicts, 
is enraged, and seeks advice from Mummu, who 
urges Apsu to execute his plan. A few of the 
gods of order are frightened at the coming war 
and bewail their fate; but Ha encourages them, 
and, to show them his prowess, advances 
against Apsu and Mummu, casts a spell upon 
them and slays them. Apsu being destroyed, 
Ka makes Apsu (the sweet water ocean) his 
abode, and thus he becomes the god of sweet 
waters. Immediately after this, Anu, the 
heaven-god, appears on the scene. 

Meanwhile, either to Ea or Ansar, a child is 
born, to whom is given the name of Merodach 
(Marduk). Here the poem describes the birth 


ANGELS AND CHAOS IN OTHER DocuMENTS 87 


of Marduk, who is to be the protagonist of the 
poem. 

One of Tiamat’s attendants reports to her the 
death of Apsu and of Mummu. He urges her to 
revenge her husband and create monsters to 
help her in the combat. Description of eleven 
monsters or dragons of chaos. Nine are named. 
They all bear names of wild and ferocious ani- 
mals. Tiamat chooses one of them to be her 
lord and king over the chaos, and so Kingu is 
exalted over the powers of chaos and receives 
the tablet of fate. Tiamat prepares for battle. 
Ea discovers the plot and reports to Ansar 
(Assur), who, being terrified, appeals to Ka and 
begs him to use his curse against Tiamat as he 
had done against Apsu. But Ha is powerless 
before Tiamat. Ea went up indeed against 
Tiamat and her dragons, but he was defeated 
and fled. Ansar, in turn, appeals to Anu the 
heaven-god. Anu obeys his father, and goes up 
to meet Tiamat; but he likewise retreats in 
terror. But Ansar remembers the prowess of 
Marduk, and so his confidence revives. 

Ka summons his son Marduk into the pres- 
ence of Ansar, who asks him to fight Tiamat, 
foretelling at the same time his victory. Mar- 
duk accepts the perilous honor, but he asks to 
be first promoted to the rank of a great god, 


88 Tue BipticAL STORY OF CREATION 


as a reward for his labors and valor. The gods 
of order consent to all Marduk demands; and 
so he is added to the sacred assembly of the 
highest gods. He receives the power of declar- 
ing fates and the mystic attributes of a great 
deity, by possessing the word of fate and the 
power to declare it. He receives the scepter 
and the weapons of battle, works miracles, and 
forthwith proceeds against Tiamat. 

The poem describes the gigantic battle. 
Tiamat and her host of giants and monsters 
is defeated and slain. Kingu, Tiamat’s second 
husband and king of chaos, together with his 
monsters, is bound and hurled down into the 
nether-world. The gods of order, naturally 
enough, assist Marduk in the battle; Marduk 
divides the body of Tiamat (chaos is in the 
Hebrew, Tehom), and constructs out of it 
heaven, earth, and the nether-sea, in which he 
fixes the respective abodes of the three gods of 
order, Anu, Enlil, and Ha. 

Book V deals with astronomical theories on 
the movements of the planets along the ecliptic, 
the motions of the moon and the positions of 
the signs of the Zodiac, as constructed by Mar- 
duk. This part of the text is incomplete. 

Book VI is ushered in with the creation of 
man. Marduk assembles the gods of order, 


ANGELS AND CHAOS IN OTHER DocuMENTS 89 


and commands that Kingu, who lies in confine- 
ment in the under-world, be taken out and made 
to appear before them. Ea slays him, and this 
god or Marduk, it is not certain which of the 
two, creates man from the blood of Kingu. 
Man, it is there distinctly said, was created to 
honor the gods in worship and serve them. The 
gods, as a token of gratitude toward Marduk, 
decide to build a great shrine on earth to his 
honor, where they may all assemble. Marduk 
rejoices at that public recognition of his brav- 
ery, and decides to build Babylon and its temple 
Esagila. The gods build the city and its great 
temple in honor of Marduk. 

Afterward the gods arrange the laws of the 
universe and distribute the power over it 
amongst themselves. Marduk lays down his 
weapons before them. Anu gives a name to 
Marduk’s bow, and fixes it in heaven as Canis 
Major. Moreover, Anu defines the powers of 
Marduk: the latter shall be the ruler of man- 
kind and charged with the care of temples and 
sacrifices. Babylon is a pattern of the constel- 
lations of Cetus and Aries. The gods give 
Marduk fifty titles of honor; then they sing a 
hymn in honor of Marduk. 

Thus closes this singular Babylonian Poem 
of Creation, which, as the attentive reader must 


90 THE BIBLICAL STorRY OF CREATION 


have seen, is a living witness to the truth of 
the revolt of the angels against God, their sub- 
sequent defeat, followed by the destruction of 
the earth. Chaos is there described as in the 
Bible; the nature and cause of the same is 
clearly defined. Tiamat is the same word as 
Tehom, the Hebrew word for chaos. Apsu, 
Mummu, Tiamat, and the other monsters of 
chaos are dreadful demons, gods of disorder, 
enemies to Ansar, Anu, and Ha, gods of order. 
Even to-day, in the Hast, Tiamat is the name 
commonly given to a dreadful devil who is pe- 
culiarly obnoxious to men, and whom pagan, 
Mohammedan, as well as superstitious Chris- 
tian natives believe to have been an angel of 
God, hurled down from heaven by God on ac- 
count of his iniquity. 

Marduk, having killed Tiamat, builds up with 
her body the heaven, the earth, and the nether- 
ocean,—i. e., almost certainly Hades or Sheol. 
As we may see, this is not creation out of noth- 
ing. Everything is created out of chaos, which 
is the very personification of the Evil Power, 
of Satan. The six Biblical days of the creation 
or of the reconstruction of the universe are not 
mentioned in this poem; but they are quite dis- 
tinctly recorded in other clay tablets, come 
down to us. 


ANGELS AND CHAOS IN OTHER DocuMENTS 91 


The description of the creation is far re- 
moved from the simplicity and mysterious dig- 
nity of the Bible; but it is not without a deep 
significance that man also is created out of 
chaos and contains in himself an element of evil 
and disorder, namely the blood of Kingu, king 
and dragon of chaos. 

The Babylonian poem is a clear confirmation 
of the interpretation of the first verses of Gene- 
sis that we are considering. God created the 
heavens and the earth in a state of perfection, 
beauty, and loveliness. The angels rebelled 
against God, and after their fall, not being able 
to vent upon God their spite, malice and fury, 
falling headlong from heaven upon the earth 
they destroyed, reduced to a dark chaos, the 
heaven of the sun and planets and the earth 
itself. The poem here and there varies from 
the Biblical facts, but it narrates them all, or 
alludes to them. It is easily understood that 
the poetical ornaments of the poem, the gro- 
tesque amplifications, the polytheistic personi- 
fications, the fantastic pictures did not exist in 
the old tradition. They were superimposed 
later by the poet or poets who wrote the epic. 

In this poem, and in other tablets interpreted 
by Dr. George Smith, the revolt of angels 
against God is narrated almost in the same 


92 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


terms used by John in the Revelation. It is 
even said that ‘‘the angels fell from heaven as 
lightning,’’ that ‘‘they first reached the abyss 
of waters,’’ that ‘‘they threw themselves down 
upon the earth, which they devastated as a tor- 
rent’’; ‘‘they fell upon the earth as a storm.’’ 
‘‘They suddenly appeared before the light of 
the god Sin.’’ The god Sin is none other than 
the sun. It is said elsewhere that ‘‘the angels, 
falling down from heaven, obscured the sun and 
the moon’’ and ‘‘unchained in the air the fury 
of appalling storms’’ (George Smith, Assyrian 
Discoveries, pages 396-398). 

In view of these Babylonian discoveries, our 
interpretation of the first verses of Genesis 
harmonizes in a remarkable way the words of 
Christ, those of the apostles, the vision of 
Enoch, and the ancient Babylonian documents. 

The apostles have been mentioned. Here is 
what Jude, James’ brother, writes in his gen- 
eral Epistle: ‘‘And the angels which kept not 
their first estate [or dignity, condition], but left 
their own habitation, he hath reserved in ever- 
lasting chains under darkness unto the judg- 
ment of the great day’’ (v. 6). The first estate 
or dignity of the fallen angels was their primi- 
tive innocence and spontaneous submission to 
God. Their first habitation was heaven; so 


ANGELS AND CHAOS IN OTHER DocuMENTsS 93 


their fall from heaven to earth, nay, to the abode 
of misery and of darkness, is here affirmed ex- 
plicitly. And so also Peter: ‘‘God spared not 
the angels that sinned, but cast them down to 
hell, and delivered them into chains of dark- 
ness, to be reserved unto judgment’’ (2 Pet. 
2:4). The same is affirmed more briefly, or 
alluded to, in several passages by Paul. 

We have seen the significance of the Baby- 
lonian documents, newly translated by Dr. 
Langdon. But those early traditions do not 
stand alone. The ancient Brahmins also be- 
heved the same thing. The Brahmins teach 
even at present that in an epoch indefinitely 
distant from us, which they call yuga, the 
world was entirely destroyed; and this cosmic 
destruction has nothing to do with the tradi- 
tion of the deluge, of which likewise they have 
a most vivid record. They also expect another 
such destruction of the world at the end of this 
present age, called by them Kali Yuga, named 
from the goddess Kali, the symbol of crime, of 
degeneracy, of decadence and immorality. 

Their Vedas distinctly teach the theory which 
we are setting forth. Chaos is represented by 
those most ancient Vedic poets as a personifi- 
cation of Vritra, an infernal dragon, a cosmic 
being, who not only guards and defends the 


94 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


dark and mysterious waters of chaos, but him- 
self is chaos. In fact, one of the Vedic poets 
says: ‘‘There was darkness in chaos; there 
was a vault which hid the dark waters; there 
was a mountain of waters in the interior of 
Vritra’s caverns.’’ ‘‘But Indra took the 
thunderbolt, killed the dragon, and thus the 
seven rivers (Punjab) began freely to flow.’’ 
As Vritra corresponds to the Babylonian Tia- 
mat, so Indra is the counterpart of Marduk. 
The Vedic poets expressly call Vritra ‘‘the 
enemy of God, a mysterious and wicked being, 
who undertook a great war against the gods in 
order to conquer for himself the kingdom of 
light, 1. e., heaven. This dragon Vritra was 
followed by thousands and thousands of mon- 
sters.’’ 

Nor was this tradition of the revolt of the 
angels against God limited to the nations that 
lived in the Kast. It is remarkable that even in 
the Scandinavian mythology we find a trace of 
that distant event. In the Scandinavian Edda 
it is related how once the earth, the sun, and the 
moon were utterly destroyed, and the sun rose 
where now it sets. The following are frag- 
ments of the prophecies of the Vala, drawn from 
the Edda: ‘‘T remember,’’ says the sybil, ‘‘nine 
worlds and nine heavens. Before the sons of 


ANGELS AND CHAOS IN OTHER DOCUMENTS 99 


Bor [the gods] raised the globes, they who cre- 
ated the gleaming Midgaard, the sun shone in 
the South. In the East was seated the old 
woman in the forest of iron [the polar ices]. 
The sun is covered with clouds, the earth sinks 
in the sea, the shining stars disappear from the 
heavens, clouds of smoke envelop the all- 
nourishing tree, lofty flames mount even to 
heaven, the sea rears itself violently toward 
the skies and passes over the lands. Neither 
earth nor sun exists any longer, the air is over- 
come by glittering streams . . . she [the sybil] 
for the second time sees the earth, covered with 
verdure, rise from the sea.’’ 

This remarkable vision of the sybil is a du- 
plicate of Enoch’s vision. The geologist Klee 
believes that the Scandinavian sybil relates in 
this passage how the earth once broke its axis, 
thus causing that catastrophe which is here de- 
scribed. He thinks that this Scandinavian tra- 
dition was derived from the Egyptian priests, 
who clearly taught that once the sun rose where 
now it sets, and that the earth was utterly de- 
stroyed. Be this as it may, the fact is that 
such a tradition is found in the ancient writings 
of all nations. Some scholars confuse this tra- 
dition with that of the deluge, but wrongly; 
the two stand far apart. The earth was not 


96 THe BIBLICAL SToRY OF CREATION 


destroyed by the deluge. This latter catastro- 
phe happened within historical times; man did 
not witness the former. God revealed it to man, 
that he might fear and defend himself against 
Satan, the great enemy of God. 


Vv 
THE DRAGONS OF CHAOS IN THE BIBLE 


r | ANHE identification of chaos with the drag- 
ons or devils who guard and possess it is 
not a distinctive characteristic of Baby- 

lonian and Vedic mythology. It is found in the 

Bible. The Psalms, Job, Isaiah, and Ezekiel 

describe three monsters, respectively called 

Rahab, Behemoth, and Leviathan, which pos- 

sess, more or less, the characteristics of the 

dragons of chaos. ‘‘It is enough to admit,’’ 
says Professor Minocchi, ‘‘that Rahab was the 
name which the Hebrews gave to a poetic crea- 
tion analogous to the Babylonian Tiamat, to be 
immediately struck with the undeniable paral- 
lelism of the two series of expressions referring 
to the creation of the world. Rahab is un- 
doubtedly the Babylonian Tiamat.’’ In Psalm 
74: 12-17, the monster is called Leviathan. Le- 
viathan, etymologically, means ‘‘the crooked 
dragon’’ (Salvatore Minocchi, La Genesi). 
These three monsters continually appear in 
the Old Testament. The Psalms and Prophets 
are full of them. Gesenius says that ‘‘under 
7 97 


98 THE BrpuicAL STORY OF CREATION 


the name of Leviathan, the Bible meant any 
large monster, living in water, as the large sea- 
monsters, the crocodiles, the pythons, or still 
better the colossal serpents and monsters of the 
desert. Rahab has, more or less, the same 
meaning. Behemoth, on the contrary, is often 
taken for a hippopotamus or an elephant.’’ 
Gesenius, however, adds that ‘‘the Bible con- 
stantly gives to these monsters an allegorical 
meaning, i. e., it considers them as personifica- 
tions of the principle of destruction.’’ This 
observation by Gesenius deserves considera- 
tion. Rahab, Behemoth and Leviathan are not 
three huge animals, but three horrible demons, 
three angels of destruction, three dragons of 
chaos. They are rightly called angels of de- 
struction because they destroyed the earth. 
Keeping this interpretation before one, the pas- 
sages in the Psalms, Job, and the Prophets, 
where their names occur, are very clear; when, 
on the contrary, they are taken merely for ani- 
mals, or when they are supposed to be exclu- 
sively symbols of wicked kings, enemies of 
Israel, then their real significance is obscured 
and the Biblical passages have no meaning. 
One may admit, of course, that those animals 
often represent the Pharaoh of Egypt or the 
King of Syria; but when they mean that, the 


THe Dracons or CHAOS 99 


inspired writer takes great care to inform the 
reader of it, and he can therefore discriminate 
the latter from the former usage. 

To cite a few of these passages. ‘‘Awake, 
awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord,’’ 
exclaims Isaiah, ‘‘awake, as in the ancient days, 
in the generations of old. Art thou not it that 
hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?”’’ 
(Isa. 51:9). 

‘‘In that day,’’ says the prophet elsewhere, 
‘‘the Lord with his sore and great and strong 
sword shall punish leviathan the piercing ser- 
pent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and 
he shall slay the dragon that [is] in the sea’’ 
(Isa. 27:1). The Leviathan was in the sea. 
Rahab as well as Leviathan are always re- 
corded in connection with waters, with the sea 
and chaos. 

And in Psalm 89:8-11: ‘‘O Lord God of 


Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the 
waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. Thou 
hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is 
slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with 
thy strong arm. The heavens are thine, the 
earth also is thine; as for the world and the 
fulness thereof, thou hast founded them.’’ 
Rahab here clearly means Satan, the chief and 


100 THe BrsuicaL STorY OF CREATION 


leader of the rebellious angels; and the enemies 
of God mentioned in this Psalm are not men, 
but the followers of Satan. Often Bible com- 
mentators apply the passage just quoted to the 
departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt, 
and to the miracles wrought by God through 
Moses on that memorable occasion; but this is 
not the true meaning of the passage. From 
verses 5 to 13 all that is said refers to the crea- 
tion of the heavens and the earth by the Al- 
mighty; not a word is said about Egypt or the 
Exodus. There is no reason why the sacred 
poet, interrupting the natural flow of the pas- 
sage, should interpose the story of the Exodus 
of Israel from Egypt. 

This is still more manifest in Psalm 74: 12- 
17: ‘‘FWor God is my King of old, working sal- 
vation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst 
divide the sea by thy strength; thou brakest 
the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou 
brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and 
gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting 
the wilderness. Thou didst cleave the fountain 
and the flood: thou driedst up mighty rivers. 
The day is thine; the night also is thine: thou 
hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast 
set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made 
summer and winter.’’ If we meditate on this 


THE DraAGoNs oF CHAOS 101 


passage, we shall not fail to see that the Psalm- 
ist identifies leviathan, or the Biblical crooked 
dragon, with the sea,—i. e., with primitive 
chaos. The Septuagint Greek interpreters 
translate verse 12, ‘‘But God is my king before 
all centuries,’’ ante saecula. No word here 
about the Exodus from Egypt. The wonders 
mentioned took place before all centuries: ante 
saecula; 1. e., when God created the heavens 
and the earth. But before proceeding to the 
creation of the heavens and of the earth, God 
was obliged to restrain within the sea, to break 
the heads of the dragons in the waters, to break 
the leviathan. In Hebrew the word to break is 
always represented by the same verb: to break, 
to weaken, to restrain, to render powerless, to 
kill. 

It is said here that the leviathan has been 
given to be meat to the people inhabiting the 
wilderness. What does the Psalmist mean by 
‘the people inhabiting the desert?’’ In the 
language of the Bible, the desert is the abode of 
monsters, of wild animals, of pythons and drag- 
ons, symbolizing the mysterious forces of evil, 
the angels of destruction,x—i. e., the devils. 
The devils live in the desert; Jesus himself 
confirmed with his divine authority this belief, 
when he said: ‘‘When the unclean spirit is 


102 TueE BrsuicaAL STorY OF CREATION 


gone out of a man, he walketh through dry 
places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he 
saith, I will return into my house from whence 
I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it 
empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, 
and taketh with himself seven other spirits 
more wicked than himself, and they enter in 
and dwell there: and the last state of that man 
is worse than the first’’ (Matt. 12: 43-46; Luke 
11: 24-26). And thus Satan (leviathan) was 
condemned to be among his own people in the 
wilderness. 

The Bible confirms the Babylonian Poem of 
Creation, and this, in its way, throws light on 
the Bible. But that is not all. In the Psalm 
quoted there is a clear allusion to the manner 
whereby God broke down the power of levia- 
than, the dragon of chaos. ‘‘@God,’’ says the 
Psalm, ‘‘worked a salvation in the midst of the 
earth.’’ In what did this salvation consist? 
It is explained in the verses that follow: ‘‘God 
divided the sea by his strength,’’ i. e., he di- 
vided it into two, setting free the sweet waters 
that, through Satanic agency, had mingled 
themselves with the salt waters of the sea. The 
sweet waters went back to their place above 
the sky; the dry appeared, i. e., the earth; and 
with this, rivers and fountains overflowed and 


THE DraGcons ofr CHAOS 103 


perennial rivers dried up. ‘The day and the 
night came, because, the sun and the moon being 
set free from the waters which kept them sub- 
merged in the waters, they illumined with their 
light the whole earth. The points of compari- 
son between Psalm 74 and the Babylonian 
Poem of Creation are many and evident. 

But there is in the Bible another passage 
which, unfortunately, has been wrongly inter- 
preted; whereas, when read in the light of our 
interpretation, it could not be more clear and 
intelligible. The passage is in Job 40:6 to 
41:34, and concerns the two Biblical monsters 
Behemoth and Leviathan. The quotation is too 
long to be cited in its entirety, hence a short 
analysis of it may suffice. God wishes to show 
Job that He alone is Strong, Infinite, Almighty, 
in order that in His presence all flesh should 
tremble, and humble itself, and that no man 
should be presumptuous about his own powers. 
The arguments used by God to prove all this 
are progressive. The wonders of creation show 
the strength, the power, the infinite majesty of 
God; but the climax is reached when God af- 
firms that he has broken down, humbled, and 
tamed Behemoth, that huge monster, similar 
to the elephant and hippopotamus, endowed 
with an almost infinite pride and strength. 


104 Tue Brsrican Story oF CREATION 


‘‘Behemoth is the beginning of the creations 
of God,’’ as the Septuagint interpreters with 
the Vulgate translate ‘‘Ipse est princepium 
viarum Dew’’; and only He who has made him 
can approach him with His sword (v. 19). 

Behemoth, which in Chapter 40 is a kind of 
elephant or hippopotamus, in the following 
chapter becomes the leviathan and is described 
as a python or dragon. No one, save God alone, 
can tame him. Only the Almighty draws him 
out of the waters with a hook, puts a hook 
into his nose, and bores his jaws with a thorn. 
Only the Almighty plays with him as with a 
bird and binds him at His pleasure. And yet 
this monster is terrifyingly strong and im- 
mensely to be feared. Leviathan ‘‘maketh the 
deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like 
a pot of ointment. He maketh a path to shine 
after him; one would think the deep to be 
hoary. Upon earth there is not his like, who is 
made without fear. He beholdeth all high 
things: he is a king over all the children of 
pride.’’ This description perfectly fits Satan, 
‘‘the beginning of God’s creations,’’ ‘‘a king 
over all the children of pride,’’ not a monstrous 
animal Rahab, Behemoth, or Leviathan. 

Are not these monsters the Biblieal counter- 
parts of the dragons of chaos described by the 


Tur DRAGONS OF CHAOS 105 


Babylonian Poem of Creation? The writer has 
no doubt of it, and it would seem that no rea- 
sonable doubt can be entertained by careful and 
attentive readers of the passage in Job. Rahab, 
Behemoth, and Leviathan are not fantastic 
monsters or fanciful creations of an Oriental 
poet. They are likened to the strongest ani- 
mals of the earth, of the desert, and of the sea 
in order to make us understand how courageous, 
strong, powerful and fierce they are; but these 
mysterious being are far from being animals. 
They are spirits, wicked spirits who through 
sin have so debased themselves as to have de- 
generated from pure, immortal, exalted spirits 
into strong, fearful, and ferocious animals. As 
is the case with man, so with the angels of God. 
Man, the friend of God, is Godlike: good, meek, 
gentle, lovely. When debased and corrupted 
through vice he becomes an animal, often a 
strong, wild, and hideous animal. His better 
and higher nature disappears; nothing remains 
of him but the dirt, the loathesomeness, the 
ugliness of sin. So it was with Satan and his 
rebellious angels. They were once the friends 
of God, and his most exalted spirits; now they 
are his enemies,—powerful, repulsive, fright- 
ful beasts, the monsters and dragons of chaos. 
This is confirmed by another passage of Job. 


106 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


In Chapter 26 Job, answering his friend Bildad, 
praises God and exalts the greatness of the Al- 
mighty, manifested especially in the work of 
creation. Bildad had affirmed that ‘‘Dominion 
and fear are with him [God], he maketh peace 
in his high places. Is there any number of his 
armies? and upon whom doth not his light 
arise? How then can man be justified with 
God? or how can he be clean that is born of a 
woman? Behold even to the moon, and it 
shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his 
sight. How much less man, that is a worm? 
and the son of man, which is a worm?’’ (Job 
25:1-6). Bildad clearly alludes to the war that 
took place in the high places, i. e., in heaven; 
to the multitude of God’s armies; to the sin of 
the angels; and he affirms that none is pure in 
the sight of God. Job answers that Bildad does 
not teach an ignoramus. He also knows that 
‘‘dead things are formed [by God] from under 
the waters, and the inhabitants thereof. Hell 
is naked before him, and destruction Rath no 
covering. He stretcheth out the north over the 
empty place, and hangeth the earth upon noth- 
ing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick 
clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them. 
He holdeth back the face of his throne, and 
spreadeth his cloud upon it. He hath com- 


THe Dracons or CHAOS 107 


passed the waters with bounds, until the day 
and night come to an end. The pillars of 
heaven tremble and are astonished at his re- 
proof. He divideth the sea with his power, and 
by his understanding he smiteth through the 
proud [Septuagint, Rahab]. By his spirit he 
hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath 
formed the crooked serpent. Lo, these are 
parts of his ways: but how little a portion is 
heard of him? but the thunder of his power who 
can understand?’’ (26: 1-14). 

It is evident that Job speaks here of the crea- 
tion of the heavens and of the earth in a man- 
ner analogous to the Babylonian Poem of Crea- 
tion. The dead things which God forms, or 
better draws from under the waters, are the 
ruins, the debris, the broken pieces of the primi- 
tive creation; the inhabitants of the waters are 
the sea-monsters which God expels from chaos. 
Hell (Heb., Sheol) of verse 6 is identical with 
chaos or destruction, over which God exercises 
complete mastery and domination. The earth 
comes out of chaos (v. 7) and separates it from 
the waters above, which he binds up in the 
clouds. He divides the sea with his power and 
compasses the waters with bounds; but before 
doing this he must smite through the proud 
(or Rahab), bring the pillars of heaven low, and 


108 Tue BreticaAL StorY oF CREATION 


make them tremble. ‘‘The pillars of heaven 
tremble and are astonished at his reproof... 
his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.”’ 
But once upon a time Rahab, the crooked ser- 
pent, was an angel of light. He was an orna- 
ment of heaven in the days when God by His 
Spirit garnished the heavens. Job’s book, one 
of the most ancient of the Bible, very clearly 
confirms the Babylonian poem, the dragons of 
chaos, the reconstruction of the earth, de- 
stroyed through the envy and malice of Behe- 
moth, Rahab, and Leviathan. The sacred book 
mentions likewise the night and the day,—i. e., 
how God worked in order to undo the works of 
the proud, yea, of the king over all the children 
of pride. 

I might quote other ancient documents from 
the Egyptians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks. 
All these ancient peoples confirm the theory 
which has been set forth. Those who are fa- 
miliar with the Greek, Latin, Italian and Eng- 
lish poets can bring to mind what Hesiod, 
Eschilus, Ovid, Dante, Milton and others wrote 
on this subject. The twelve Titans, born in 
heaven and of semi-divine descent, rose in re- 
bellion against Jupiter, whom they wanted to 
expel from his throne in order to occupy his 
place in heaven. They were defeated, and, hav- 


THE Dragons oF CHAOS 109 


ing been hurled down from heaven, fell into 
Tartarus or hell. The Greeks and the Etrus- 
cans, no less than the Bible and the Babylonian 
poem, taught that Erebus and Night came out 
of chaos. Erebus is a synonym of darkness, 
and is often assumed as being identical with 
Sheol or Hades. We therefore possess a com- 
plete and uninterrupted tradition of the history 
of the primitive creation of the heaven and 
earth and their subsequent destruction by the 
arch-enemy of God. But this tradition is in the 
Bible recorded in a sober and concise manner, 
and is purely monotheistic; whereas in the 
sacred books of the nations the same tradition 
is altered, enlarged, exaggerated, tainted with 
mythological and polytheistic elements, and 
perverted. But the principal Biblical facts are 
still discernible under a cloud of mythological 
amplifications. 

To sum up in a few words what has been 
said: Satan and his angels destroyed our solar 
system, and reduced the sun, the moon, the 
planets, and the earth to a confused and a 
shapeless mass of dead things, as Job says; or 
to chaos, as the Bible and other Oriental docu- 
ments have it. This Tiamat, corresponding to 
the Biblical Tehom, was all that remained of 
our solar system after the destruction wrought 


110 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


by the infuriated angels. These fiery demons, 
or dragons, sat as victors on the mighty ruins 
of our world till they were dislodged by the 
power of the Almighty. How long did the 
dragons of chaos sit, undisputed masters, over 
the ruins of our world? The Bible does not 
tell us. They kept chaos in their power until 
the Spirit of God began to move upon the dark 
waters of the abyss. When God said, ‘‘ Let 
there be light,’’ the dragons of chaos began to 
retreat before the advancing host of heaven. 
The colossal ruins of our world began to feel 
the power of the Almighty God, and to regain 
their old place in the great fabric of the uni- 
verse. To guilt, to sin, to crime, symbolized by 
dark chaos, God’s mercy, symbolized by light, 
was suddenly substituted. God began to undo 
the works of the Devil, as John says. ‘‘He 
that committeth sin is of the Devil; for the 
Devil sinneth from the beginning. For this 
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that 
he might destroy [Greek, undo] the works of 
the Devil’? (1 John 3:8). The Devil sinneth 
from the beginning. From the beginning of 
what? Evidently from the beginning of crea- 
tion. His revolt against God was his sin; there 
was, at that time, no man to tempt and seduce. 
The Son of God was manifested that he might 


THE DRAGONS OF CHAOS 111 


undo the works of the Devil. The Son of God, 
the Word of God, reconstructed the earth 
which Satan had destroyed. John says that 
the Son of God was manifested; he does not 
say that the Son of God was manifested in the 
flesh. This is the constant work of God, ‘‘to 
undo the works of the Devil.’’ The Son of God 
is the Word of God; and the Word is Light, 
and ‘‘the light shineth in darkness; and the 
darkness comprehended [lit., laid not hold of 
it] it not.’’ The Light ‘‘was in the world, and 
the world was made by him, and the world knew 
him not (John’s Gospel, Chapter I). 

As we have seen, the first day of creation, as 
told in Genesis, begins with darkness, because 
spiritual darkness, i. e., the evil forces of the 
spiritual world, are in possession of chaos; 
wherefore the inspired writer repeats con- 
cerning every day, ‘‘And the evening and the 
morning were the first, . . . second,. . . third 
| . sixth day.’’ First darkness, then light; 
first night, then day. All the human races in 
the world have always commenced the day 
from the evening, from the setting of the sun, 
from darkness; and it is a singular fact that, 
since the middle ages, men have increasingly 
retarded the beginning of the day. Now they 
begin it at midnight,—i. e., when darkness is at 


112 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


its height. Is this a symbol of the much vaunted 
progress of humanity? Is light or darkness on 
the increase? God, on the contrary, began his 
reconstruction of the earth by ordering that 
light should appear, because he created every- 
thing by his Co-eternal Word, who is Uncreated 
Light. By that light God created the morning 
stars, the angels, who, as long as they remained 
friends of God, were also light; afterward, 
having rebelled against God who had created 
them out of nothing, they became evening, yea, 
night, until God said, ‘‘Let there be light,’’ and, 
the dragons of chaos being expelled, light sud- 
dently appeared. Thus the creation of the 
physical universe became a symbol of the spir- 
itual universe, in which angels and men are 
evening and dark night until God says, ‘‘ Let 
there be light!’’ and with the light of his face 
illumines the darkness of their minds and 
softens the hardness of their hearts! 


VI 


THE MYSTERY OF THE EXISTENCE 
OF EVIL 


OLLOWING the real and truest Biblical 

symbolism, the ancient Christian writers 

used to divide the history of humanity into 
Six periods, corresponding to the six days of 
creation. 

The first period or day was reckoned from 
Adam to Noah. The evening of that day was 
symbolized by Adam’s sin; the morning by the 
promise of a Redeemer and by Adam’s repent- 
ance. 

The second day is measured from Noah to 
Abraham. Its evening is the terrible corrup- 
tion that preceded the deluge and the catastro- 
_ phe of humanity; the day is the faith of Noah 
and of his children. 

The third runs from Abraham to David. The 
idolatry into which all humanity, even Abra- 
ham’s family, had fallen is the evening of that 
day; its morning is Abraham’s vocation and 
faith, his holiness and the righteousness of his 
children. 

The fourth day begins with David and ends 

8 113 


114 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


at the Babylonian captivity. The evening of 
that day was the rejection, on the part of the 
people of Israel, of theocratic government, i. e., 
of God, and the unrighteous and sanguinary 
reign of Saul; the morning of the fourth day 
was David’s election and consecration, chosen 
by God to be king over Israel, his faith and 
devotion to God and the glories of David’s 
kingdom. 

The fifth day is computed from the Babylo- 
nian captivity to Christ’s first advent. The eve- 
ning of that day was ushered in by the general 
idolatry and corruption of morals which not 
only had become general in the world, but had 
also deeply permeated the ranks of the Chosen 
People; that blessed morning saw Christ’s 
first advent, the mystery of his holy incarna- 
tion, his most holy life, his glorious message 
of love, peace and redemption, his passion, 
death and resurrection. Never shone upon 
earth a more glorious morning! 

The sixth day is reckoned from the first to 
the second advent of the Lord. We are now in 
the evening of that glorious day. But alas! It 
is dark, it is somber, it is nearly night! We 
witness the general decadence of Christianity; 
we see real, living faith in Christ disappearing 
from the face of the earth, and a dark chaos of 


THe Mystery or Evin 115 


errors, iniquities and human disorders taking 
gradual possession of the whole world. The 
days have come about which Christ said: 
‘“When the Son of man cometh, shall he find 
faith on the earth?’’ The morning which true 
believers wait for in faith, hope and love is 
Christ’s second advent, when he will come back 
to earth to establish his blessed kingdom in 
peace, justice and holiness. Let Thy kingdom 
come! 


In any consideration of the subject that . 


we are discussing, we are faced by a difficulty 
which has troubled countless numbers of 
thoughtful people. How could God permit one 
of his creatures, Lucifer, Satan, to destroy a 
part of the universe which He had created? 
Why did God not forestall the Devil’s plan and 
restrain him, either by making him change his 
mind, or by destroying or annihilating him? 
This difficulty, it cannot be denied, is a serious 
and weighty one. 

The Bible represents Satan as the first, or 
one of the first, amid the creations of God; and 
as such, it describes him as a most strong, most 
powerful, most intelligent being, capable of 
almost any great and exalted exploit. It is not 
by chance that we have considered at length 
the two chapters of Job where the two monsters 


# 


116 THE BisticAL STORY OF CREATION 


Behemoth and Leviathan are described. These 
two powerful animals symbolize the ‘‘King of 
all the children of pride,’’ Lucifer or Satan. 
The Chief of the rebel angels is almost omnipo- 
tent. No created being can equal him in in- 
genuity, strength and boldness; only God can 
restrain him. 

And here we see the difference between Bible 
truth and the polytheism of the Gentile books. 
According to the sacred books of the ancient 
Persians there exist two gods, equal to each 
other in power; Ahura-Mazda, the creator of 
heaven and earth, the maker of man, the good 
god who created the light; and Auro Maniyus, 
the rival and enemy of Ahura-Mazda, the god 
of darkness and of evil, creator of the evil 
spirits, the seducer of man and the destroyer 
of all that is good and beautiful. These two 
gods are so equal in every respect that one 
never gains a complete victory over the other; 
they are both all-powerful, and the work of one 
follows upon that of the other as day and night, 
light and darkness. It is not so in the Bible; 
only one God exists, and Satan is a creature of 
God: even Satan is subject to God. 

_y How, then, does God permit the existence of 
a creature at the same time so evil and so 
strong? Here would seem to be the reply: 


Toe Mystery or Evin 117 


God, having decided to create spiritual be- 
ings, created them like himself in important re- 
spects,—for the artist gives forth the ideas and 
creations of his own mind. But God is a per-~” 
fectly free Being; indeed he is the fount of all 
freedom. Therefore the angels created by him 
were endowed with liberty. Now it is the prop- 
erty of liberty to do either good or ill; to choose 
obedience to the law or rebellion against it; to 
serve the Creator voluntarily, or to refuse him 
the service due him. It is in this rebellion of 
the spirit against the law under which every 
creature is born, that sin consists. Every being 
endowed with liberty may sin. The angels 
sinned. Satan sinned; he, the highest of the 
angelic beings, perhaps the first of the creatures 
of God, became the most bitter enemy of God, 
the rival of God. In sinning he dragged into 
the same downfall millions of angels who were 
thus suddenly transformed from creatures of 
light into creatures of darkness, from good 
angels into evil demons. 

After the sin of the angels, what could God 1 
do? Three ways, certainly, were open to the 
Infinite Lord of the universe; either to convert 
them by force, to annihilate them, or to repair 
the harm that they do. 

The first way is impossible and absurd, be- 


118 Tue BrsLticAL STorY oF CREATION 


cause it implies contradiction. A conversion, 
to be really such, must be free, voluntary. God 
would not, then, constrain Satan and his angels 
to change their perverse will and repent of their 
sins and be converted. 

But neither would God annihilate them. We 
know that God never blots out anything that 
he has created. The law of the conservation of 
energy and of the indestructibility of matter 
and of force manifests to us the divine plan in 
the universe. No force is ever destroyed; no 
atom of matter is ever annihilated. An angel 
is not a material being; he is a spiritual being, 
and therefore cannot undergo physical change, 
only a spiritual one. If therefore God would 
not constrain Satan and his followers to be con- 
verted by force; if he would not blot them out 
because that is contrary to his infinite good- 
ness, nothing remained but to repair the harm 
done by the evil spirits. And it is that that 
God has always done and still constantly does. 

Hardly had Satan destroyed the primitive 
creation than God reconstructed it anew. 
Hardly had Satan seduced the first man and 
ruined the first human couple, than God inter- 
vened to save the human species, promising 
them a Redeemer who, as John says, ‘‘was 
manifested, that he might destroy the works of 


Tue Mystery or Evin 119 


the Devil’’ (1 John 3:8). Observe the words 
of John: ‘‘He that committeth sin is of the 
Devil; for the Devil sinneth from the begin- 
ning. For this purpose the Son of God was 
manifested, that he might destroy the works 
of the Devil.’’ The Devil sinneth from the be- 
ginning, ap’ arches ab initio. From the begin- 
ning of what? Certainly from the beginning 
of primitive creation, for the sin of Adam and 
ive was induced by the sin of Satan; but here 
John goes farther back than that, and clearly 
alludes to the first sin of Satan in his rebellion 
against God. 

Satan, before he sinned, was the god, the 
prince of our world; the earth and the solar 
system belonged to Satan because Giod had 
given them to him. So Satan says to Jesus in 
person, and Jesus does not contradict him 
(Luke 4:6). Therefore Jesus in more places 
than one calls Satan the ‘‘prince of this world’’ 
(John 12:31; 14:30), and Paul calls him the 
‘vod of this world’’ (2 Cor. 4:4). What won- 
der, then, that Satan, having become rebellious 
and evil, revenged himself by destroying the 
first beautiful creation of God? 

And does not stupid, brutal man act likewise? 
As God gave to Satan the care of our solar 
system, so God gave to Adam the care of the 


120 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


earth, and lordship over it. What has sinful 
man done with it during the course of cen- 
turies? Has he not soaked it in blood, defiled 
it, devastated it? I appeal to all geologists, to 
the astrophysicists and historians of the earth. 
Five or six thousand years ago the earth, the 
whole earth, was a garden of delight, a para: 
dise of God; and now through man’s own fault 
it is reduced, for the greater part, to a desert. 
Between man and Satan there is only this dif- 
ference, that whereas Satan convulsed the 
primitive earth with a sudden catastrophe, man 
has destroyed it, impoverished it, stripped it 
little by little, cutting down forests, killing ani- 
mals, depriving it of its treasures and prevent- 
ing the flow of waters, reducing it to a marsh or 
a desert. 

I hope the reader will understand how God, 
though omnipotent as respects the liberty and 
autonomy of angels and men, in his infinite 
wisdom undoes the works of darkness, repairs 
the physical and moral harm done by man, and 
causes good to come out of evil. 

The Bible calls Satan ‘‘King over all the 
children of pride’’ (Job 41: 34). No better defi- 
nition could be given of him. He fell from 
heaven through pride, and his pride is not yet 
humbled. He refuses to recognize that all that 


THE Mystery oF Evin 121 


he is proud of came from God, and that he, of 
himself, has nothing at all. This is Satan’s sin. 
He wants to be the Eternal, the Absolute, the 
Almighty God. This explains his spite, his 
fury, his anger against God, who of course does 
not recognize his absurd claims. Satan de- 
stroyed the earth; and later on, when man was 
created, he caused him to sin, and thus he sub- 
stituted himself for God in the leadership and 
guidance of the then sinful humanity. From 
that day to the present there has been a king- 
dom of Satan on earth. Satan is the prince and 
god of this world. Cast out of heaven (Luke 
10:18), he made earth and air the scene 
of his tireless activity. This present world- 
system, organized upon the principles of force, 
greed, selfishness, ambition and sinful pleas- 
ures is Satan’s work and reign. This kingdom 
was the bribe which he offered to Christ and 
which the Lord refused. 

But Satan’s long warfare against God and 
man, which still continues, will come to an end 
when, being finally defeated by Christ, he will 
be cast into the lake of fire, his final doom. 
Thus, in the day of destruction, will Jehovah 
visit final and eternal judgment upon the wicked 
and their king. 


VII 


THE DIVINE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE 
UNIVERSE, AND SCIENCE 


KF TRUE believers knew science, and if 
I scientists knew the Bible, there would be in 
the world more Christian faith and more 
true philosophy. For true faith is science,— 
but divine science, not human. It remains to be 
seen who it is that knows the universe better, 
whether the unbelieving scientist or the true 
Christian. Here, in a nutshell, is the question 
at issue. 

Biblical Concordism, or the effort to recon- 
cile the Bible and science, has utterly failed. 
The effort was made in good faith by Christian 
geologists, biologists, and astronomers, start- 
ing from the data of the sciences which they 
were teaching, to harmonize their sciences with 
the first chapters of Genesis. A vain labor! 
Their efforts brought no result whatever. They 
miserably faiied, and one does not wonder; it 
was destined to be so. The reason is not far to 
seek. In the Bible there is no human science. 
In the Biblical narrative of the creation there 

122 


DivINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 123 


is no geology, no astrophysics, no chemistry, 
biology, botany, zoology; no human science of 
any sort is found here. It is a kind of desecra- 
tion to introduce human science into the Bible; 
it is a sin to attempt to force it to say what it 
does not and will not say,—that is, to formulate 
scientific systems, which are as far from it as 
the Hast is from the West. There is no room 
in the Bible for any system of science. The 
creative symbols of the Biblical narrative are, 
indeed, so comprehensive that you may appar- 
ently force into them any scientific theory; but 
there is in them, at the same time, such an ac- 
curate order and definiteness that the men most 
qualified to judge find depths within depths, 
and laws within laws. These laws, these depths, 
spurn the ever-changing theories of men, and 
refuse to be beaten down into a supine acquies- 
cence. The manner or wording of the divine 
narrative of the creation of heaven and earth 
is both mysterious and very simple. 

Again, the Bible narrative has always seemed 
to be in opposition to the science of the day. 
But there are weighty reasons for this disagree- 
ment. Had the account of creation, as given 
in the Bible, accorded with the science pro- 
pounded in Greece or Rome, or even with that 
taught by the schoolmen during the long period 


124 THE BrsuicaAL Story OF CREATION 


of the Middle Ages, it would now be contemptu- 
ously rejected as utterly false. A revelation 
of only so much astronomy as was known to 
Copernicus would have seemed imperfect after 
the discoveries of Galileo and Newton; and a 
revelation of the science of Newton would have 
appeared defective to Laplace; a revelation of 
all the chemical knowledge of the eighteenth 
century would have been deficient in compari- 
son with the information of the present day; 
just as what is now known in this and in other 
sciences will probably appear deficient, perhaps 
doubtful, or it may be absolutely wrong, before 
the termination of this present age. 

It was, then, due to a divine purpose that the 
Biblical narrative has been clothed in such lan- 
guage that it stands alone, as at the first, amid 
a crowd of ever-changing opinions; it remains 
immutable amid ever-varying interpretations. 
The fact is, that the Hebrew narrative of crea- 
tion not only, as has already been said, does 
not use scientific terms, but does not set forth 
any science at all. This must be insisted upon, 
because it is absolutely true. We must there- 
fore, for the moment, dismiss science, and re- 
fer to the Biblical text alone for a solution of 
the mysteries involved in the divine narrative. 

I have said that Biblical Concordism, tried 


DIVINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 125 


by Cuvier, Stoppani, Meighan, Vigouroux, 
Crossly, Adams, and many other scientists of 
Christian conviction, has utterly failed. Gene- 
sis, when read in the light of modern science, 
either has no meaning at all, or else must be 
rejected as fantastic, arbitrary, and scientifi- 
cally baseless. ‘The reason of this has been 
given. In Genesis there is no science whatever, 
as such; not even a scientific term; hence we 
must beware lest we lend to it our preconceived 
scientific ideas and read into it our philosophic 
systems. Genesis will never yield itself to that. 
But if we give to the narrative of creation the 
interpretation that we have been considering, 
a flood of light falls upon it; it all becomes 
clear and luminous. We have no longer to 
deal with baseless or arbitrary scientific hy- 
potheses, such as the nebula of Laplace, the 
‘‘first matter’’ of the schoolmen, the primordial 
and eternal world of pantheists and evolution- 
ists; but we are simply confronted with a real, 
a tangible, an incontrovertible fact: the truth 
of creation. 

That matter is not and could not be eternal; 
that the universe owes its existence to an [n- 
finite Eternal Being, who alone possesses the 
very fountain of being, ‘‘the blessed and only 
Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of 


126 THe BrsticAL StorY OF CREATION 


lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in 
the light which no man can approach unto; 
whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom 
be honor and power everlasting,’’—all this, I 
say, are verities which stand at the very foun- 
dation of Bible teaching, and which science 
also, true, honest science, can conclusively cor- 
roborate. But if we want to find in Genesis the 
schematic forms of the geologist, the classifica- 
tions of the naturalist, the atoms and the prime- 
val simple matter of the chemist, then we shall 
be sorely disappointed: there is nothing in 
Genesis of that. In Genesis there is truth; and 
truth says that ‘‘in the beginning, heaven and 
earth sprang suddenly into being in the full 
perfection of their respective nature,’’ and did 
not evolve slowly from primeval matter, from 
a most simple atom, from a nebula, from some 
primeval and single element, let it be hydrogen 
or whatever else the poetic imagination of 
chemists may still invent! This latter theory 
is absolutely baseless, and I defy all the chem- 
ists of the world to prove it. Even now, after 
the millenniums that our earth has existed, no 
simple bodies naturally exist, but only compos- 
ite ones. The element is an artificial product 
of man, which he extracts from the chemical 
combination of which it is part and parcel. 


DiIvINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 127 


Those who imagine the world to have been de- 
veloped from one element only, and man from 
a cell, and consign these foolish ideas to books, 
write trashy novels; they do not produce sci- 
entific books. 

Two facts are affirmed in Genesis, and only 
two: first, the creation of heaven and earth by 
the Almighty God; and second, the reconstruc- 
tion of the earth after it had been destroyed 
through the Devil’s work. The former is 
stated in the first verse; the latter is described 
in the third. Between the two facts chaos in- 
tervenes. 

Chaos is described in the second verse. This 
description has ever been the stumbling-block 
of scientists, Christian as well as unbelieving. 
Scientists radically adulterate the idea of the 
Biblical chaos, and then, having perverted it at 
will, they build up their hypotheses! Is it to 
be wondered at if the latter are contrary to the 
facts as narrated in Genesis? They turn the 
Biblical chaos into an elementary matter, con- 
taining as in a germ all things, from the chemi- 
cal atom of dead matter to the primordial cell 
of living plants and to the ovules of animals. 
Now in the second verse of Genesis nothing is 
said to warrant all this. The Biblical chaos, as 
already stated, is ‘‘a great dark ocean,’’ in 


128 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


Hebrew, tehom, in Greek, abyss, ‘‘that covers 
the earth,’’ which certainly exists, but does not 
possess any order and distribution of parts, has 
no embellishments, does not contain formed 
bodies, nor light, nor heat, nor any movement 
whatever. The Biblical chaos had no order, no 
embellishments, no distinct parts, no light, no 
movement; all this is distinctly stated in the 
second and third verses of Genesis. 

Light first shone at the bidding of God, and 
movement began when the Spirit of God, the 
strong wind of God, shook its mighty wings over 
the face of the abyss. The Biblical chaos was 
not primitive matter, co-eternal with God, and 
containing as in a germ all things; but it was 
a world in dissolution, a world fallen into a 
ruinous state. The earth was there still, but 
covered by an immense quantity of water, part 
of which God afterward raised above the firma- 
ment or solar sky. Light, sun, moon and plan- 
ets really existed within the radius of chaos, 
but, owing to the vast masses of water in which 
they lay buried, they had become quite invis- 
ible. Thus God did not create light on the first 
day, but he ordered it to become visible, to ap- 
pear, that being the meaning of the Hebrew 
word in the third verse of Genesis. The firma- 
ment, likewise, existed within the expanse of 


DivInE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 129 


chaos; so it was not created (Hebrew, bara) 
but raised up, caused to return to its place, 
where it divided the waters of the earth from 
the waters which the Bible constantly affirms to 
exist above the sky. In like manner there still 
existed under the waters of chaos the seeds 
of herbs, plants, and fruit-yielding trees, be- 
cause the appalling catastrophe, caused by 
water not by fire, had not destroyed them; and 
so God orders the earth, no sooner it emerged 
from the waters of the abyss, to bring them 
forth. 


Animal life, on the contrary, had been utterly 


destroyed in the great cataclysm, and so God, 
on the fifth day, proceeds to a new creation. In 
fact, the inspired writer uses here the creative 
word bara. The Scofield Reference Bible notes 
that only three creative acts of God are recorded 
in the first chapter of Genesis: the heavens and 
the earth, verse 1; animal life, verse 21; hu- 
man life, verses 26, 27. The first creative act 
refers to the primitive earth, and gives scope 
for all geological ages; the second and the 
third refer to the earth’s reconstruction and to 
the creation of its king, man. 

This and no other is the Biblical chaos, as de- 
seribed in the first chapter of Genesis. What 
can science oppose to all this? Nothing, abso- 

9 


——— 


130 THe BIBLIcAL STORY OF CREATION 


lutely nothing. Science can only wonder in rev- 
erent silence at the marvelous work of the Al- 
mighty, who restored order in chaos, made light 
appear, reestablished the firmament, raised the 
superior waters; made the sun, moon, and 
planets again visible; commanded the earth to 
produce herbs, plants, and fruitful trees; and 
at the end created (bara) animals and man. Is 
all this senseless and absurd? Is it anti-scien- 
tific? Is it impossible? Who will dare to say 
so? 

Geologists look on the earth itself for the 
record of its own history. So far they are 
right, provided however they do not place too 
great a confidence in their tabulated hypotheses. 
Scientists are apt to mistake hypotheses for 
hard facts; in this they are wrong. A hy- 
pothesis will never be a fact unless proved by 
facts and sound reasoning. Scientists often 
lack the former, almost always the latter. It 
is universally known that geologists divide and 
assign an epoch to stratified rocks according 
to their characteristic fossils. But the history 
of life has been very imperfectly preserved in 
the stratified parts of the earth’s crust. Apart 
from the fact that, even under the most favor- 
able conditions, only a small proportion of the 
total flora and fauna of any period could be 


DIVINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 131 


preserved in the fossil state, enormous gaps 
occur, where no record has been preserved at 
all. It is as if whole chapters and books were 
missing from a historical work. Some of these 
lacune (gaps) are sufficiently obvious. Thus, 
in some cases, powerful convulsions have 
thrown considerable portions of the rocks out 
of sight. Sometimes, an extensive metamor- 
phosis has so affected them that their original 
character, including their organic contents, 
have been destroyed. Still more often, denuda- 
tion has come into play, and vast masses of fos- 
siliferous rocks have been entirely worn away. 
That this cause has operated frequently is 
shown by the abundant want of conformity in 
the structure of the earth’s crust. 

From all these facts (they are hard facts, not 
hypotheses) it is clear that the geological rec- 
ord, as it now exists, is at the best but an im- 
perfect chronicle of geological history. In no 
country is it complete. The lacune (gaps) of 
one country must be supplied from another. 
Yet in proportion to the geographical distance 
between the localities where the gaps occur, 
and those whence the missing intervals are sup- 
plied, the element of uncertainty in our reading 
of the record is increased. Nevertheless, from 
this record alone can the history of the earth 


132 THe BrpuicaL STorY OF CREATION 


be traced. It contains the registers of the 
births and deaths of tribes of plants and ani- 
mals, which have from time to time lived on 
earth. Only an infinitesimal part of the total 
number of species that have appeared in past 
times have thus been chronicled; yet by collect- 
ing the broken fragments of the geological rec- 
ord an outline, at least, of the history of life 
upon earth can be deciphered. And this is far 
from being favorable to the arrogant claims of 
the evolution theory. 

Geologists speak of the life-time of the earth 
as Eozoic, or dawn of life; Palaeozoic, or an- 
cient life; Mesozoic, or middle life; Neozoic, 
new or modern life. No man has yet measured 
its vastness; but the entire duration of our 
earth is but a single pulsation of the mighty 
life of the universe. Now from all these geo- 
logical data, geologists, such as Professor 
Huxley, Ramsay, Darwin, Wallace, Stoppani, 
affirm that ‘‘almost all the higher forms of life 
must have existed during the Palaeozoic pe- 
riod’’ (Huxley): and that ‘‘before the lowest 
Cambrian stratum was deposited long periods 
elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, 
the whole interval from the Cambrian age to 
the present day; and that during these vast 
periods the world swarmed with living crea- 


DIVINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 133 


tures’’ (Darwin: Origin of Species, 6th Edit., 
page 286). How Darwin could, after such a 
candid confession, uphold the theory of evolu- 
tion I fail to see; but I suppose that he, while 
speaking sensibly as a geologist, committed 
himself to foolish statements as a philosopher. 
Let us remember Cicero again: ‘‘Nothing is so 
absurd that it has not been said by one or an- 
other of the philosophers.’’ 

According to our interpretation, our earth 
passed through three stages or phases. It was 
first created in absolute beauty and perfection. 
Of that first condition or phase of the earth 
the Bible does not say much. We can only infer 
that the heavens and the earth were then, with- 
out comparison, more beautiful, rich, and won- 
derful than at present; as also, 6,000 years ago, 
the earth was vastly more beautiful, fruitful, 
and rich than now. It is not physical progress 
that prevails in the world, but degeneracy. Our 
creation is getting gradually older, poorer, and 
uglier; the earth, moreover, is constantly dry- 
ing up, becoming less habitable, and by degrees 
becoming a desert. The Bible continually 
teaches that all creatures,—even the heavens,— 
save God alone, grow old. The progressive de- 
cay and degeneration of the earth and of man 
is a fact, which can be proved beyond the pos- 


184 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


sibility of doubt. Let him who wonders at this 
study natural history, geology, and anthro- 
pology; let him travel; let him interrogate, 
as to human history, the records of the past; 
and he will arrive at the truth, which states that 
‘‘not evolution, but involution, is the great law 
of the universe.’’ Involution means the im- 
perfect from the perfect, the simple from the 
composite, the immoral from the moral, ugli- 
ness from beauty, crime and vice from inno- 
cence, disorder from order, death from life. 
Of the first phase of creation, absolute beauty 
and perfection, the earth has preserved a cer- 
tain trace that will be noted later. 

The second phase in the history of the earth 
embraces the period when, the earth having 
been destroyed by the demoniacal cataclysm, it 
became disorder, confusion, darkness, chaos. 
We know of it that alone which the Bible and 
the books of the nations tell us. But of this 
period also, as of the primitive creation, the 
earth has kept a most vivid record. 

The third phase in the history of our solar 
system embraces the six days of the earth’s re- 
construction through the work of Almighty 
God. This reconstruction is narrated in the 
first chapters of Genesis; and of this also the 
earth preserves a sad record, mentioned by 


DiIvINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 135 


Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. ‘‘For I 
reckon that the sufferings of this present time 
are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest 
expectation of the creature [lit., creation] wait- 
eth for the manifestation [lit., unveiling] of the 
sons of God. For the creature [creation] was 
made subject to vanity [Gr., folly, disorder, 
unreasonableness], not willingly, but by reason 
of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 
because the creature itself also shall be deliv- 
ered from the bondage of corruption into the 
glorious liberty of the children of God. For 
we know that the whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth in pain together until now. And not 
only they, but ourselves also, which have the 
firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan 
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to 
wit, the redemption of our body’’ (Rom. 8: 18- 
23). Paul teaches that the earth, no less so 
than its inhabitants, is in bondage and in dis- 
orderly condition by reason of him who has 
subjected the same. The English translation 
of these verses is somewhat faulty, and its di- 
visions are still more so. Satan is, of course, 
he who subjected the earth to vanity; i. e., to 
disorders. When Satan shall be bound, and the 
children of God manifested (lit., unveiled), 


136 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


then the earth also will be ransomed and res- 
cued from the power of Satan, the prince and 
god of this world. 

We must now return to the Babylonian Poem 
of Creation and compare a few more of its nar- 
ratives with those corresponding in Genesis. 
The Bible represents the divine Architect of 
the universe in the act of reconstructing the 
earth, which the Devil had destroyed. God 
first calls forth light. Afterward he separates 
the waters from the waters; the waters that are 
to be above the sky from the waters that prop- 
erly belong to our earth. The Scripture dis- 
tinguishes these very clearly; and the Baby- 
lonian poem, likewise, describes two oceans, a 
salt-water one (Tiamat), and another of sweet 
water (Apsu), distinct, and at the same time 
confused together. These two oceans, consid- 
ered as one, with the Bible as well as with the 
Babylonian poem constitute the dark abyss, the 
Hebrew Tehom, the Babylonian Tiamat, the 
Greek chaos and abyss. Ea kills by a word the 
dragon of the sweet-water ocean, and he him- 
self dwells in it. Ea, in the Babylonian poem, 
is the god of wisdom and light, and is at the 
same time the god of the upper waters. With 
the destruction of Apsu the sweet-water ocean 
is definitely separated from the salt-water 


DIvINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 137 


ocean. Later on, Marduk, EKa’s son, will create 
the earth and the solar system out of the body 
of Tiamat, the salt-water ocean, i. e., chaos. 
The parallelism between Genesis and the 
Oriental poem could hardly be more complete. 
In the latter, the war between the gods of order 
and the dragons of chaos lasts apparently for 
some time, and the world destroyed by them is 
reconstructed slowly and by degrees, as in the 
Bible. The Biblical waters which God gathers 
in one place, that the dry (the dry land) may 
appear, are certainly salt waters, because they 
constituted the seas. The word is plural, not 
singular, because the seas are many and yet 
they are one. What is the nature of the waters 
which God by the firmament separated from the 
waters below? They were undoubtedly sweet 
waters; in fact, many commentators think 
them to have been a kind of vapor, which can- 
not be, when condensed, other than sweet water. 
Afterward God proceeds to the creation of 
the vegetable world. The earth is dry, free 
from salt waters, and so it can bring forth. It 
is commanded to produce herbs, grass, and 
trees yielding fruit, and it does so. This bo- 
tanical classification is the most natural of all. 
The vegetable world is still divided into grasses, 
herbs or shrubs, and trees. The vegetable 


138 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


world is not created out of nothing. In the cata- 
clysm which overthrew the world, the seeds, 
obedient to God’s command, germinated and 
gave origin to a world of flowers, shrubs, 
grasses, herbs and trees. Botanists know quite 
well that seeds will long remain under water 
without losing their power of germination. 
Water, if not boiling, kills scarcely any vege- 
table germs. 

The earth being green with grasses and 
plants, God orders the sun, moon, and planets 
to appear in the sky. In the Babylonian poem 
it is distinctly affirmed that the sun was not de- 
stroyed by the dragons of chaos: it had only 
been obscured: and so with the Bible. The 
sun, moon, and planets are commanded to be- 
come visible: they are not created (bara). 
There is really no mention of stars in the Ori- 
ental poem. The planets, together with the 
earth, make up the human world. In the Bible, 
likewise, it is principally the planets that are 
designated under the name stars. This is so 
well known that many astronomers maintain 
that Scripture, under the name ‘‘the host of 
heaven,’’? never means the stars but only the 
planets. The question is still an open one; but 
we must admit that the host of heaven was gen- 
erally to the Hebrew what it was to the Chal- 


DIVINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 139 


deans: i. e., the planets, not the stars, though 
the common people worshiped the latter as well. 

After the vegetable world, the animal world 
was created by God. It was created out of noth- 
ing (bara), because all animal life had perished 
in the appalling catastrophe that turned a beau- 
tiful world into a chaos. Here again the classi- 
fication of the animal world, though not scien- 
tific, is obvious, natural and perfect. Animal 
life is divided into two groups: sea creatures 
and land creatures. Fishes, great whales, and 
birds, belong to the first group. Domestic ani- 
mals, creeping things or reptiles, and animals 
of prey, make up the second. These six classes 
practically comprehend all animals under the 
eanopy of heaven. Not without good reason 
birds were included in the first group, because 
birds are to the air what fishes are to water; 
hence their skeletons are much alike. I have 
said that this classification is not scientific; nor 
is the classification of plants, God having no 
intention of giving us in the Bible a treatise 
on botany or zoology. God wished man to know 
that he had created all things; in consequence, 
when enumerating the things created by him- 
self, he gives a broad description of all to show 
that nothing has been left out. 

The earth having been formed in all its parts, 


140 Tue BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


and embellished with plants and animals, God 
at the end proceeds to create its lord and king, 
man. Here also Scripture makes use of the 
creative verb, bara, to create out of nothing. 
Man’s soul, of course, was created out of noth- 
ing; not the body, which was formed of the 
dust of the ground. And man was created, not 
evolved. This is expressly declared, and the 
declaration is confirmed by Christ (Matt. 14: 
4; Mark 10:6). There is an enormous gulf, a 
divergence practically infinite, between the 
lowest man and the highest beast, as Huxley 
says: and science and discovery have done 
nothing to bridge that gulf. The missing link 
between man and beast is still missing, and it 
will never be found. Fossil man does not ex- 
ist, and it is useless to look for him. Infidel 
anthropology is no science at all. Haeckel’s 
‘“discoveries’’ were proved to be utterly untrue, 
nothing more. Man was created by God, where 
and when the Bible tells us. He has not been 
very long upon earth. He was created on a 
Friday, just as the last Adam died on a Fri- 
day. First man was created, then woman. 
The first woman from the first man, and be- 
cause of man; to indicate the natural depen- 
dence of woman on man. Afterward, no man 
came into the world except through a woman, 


DIVINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 141 


to indicate that woman is not man’s servant or 
slave, but his friend, his help, his mate. In 
their respective souls, and before God, man and 
woman are perfectly equal; so also perfectly 
equal,—though in kind, not in quality—in their 
intellectual and emotional gifts and powers; 
equal in their rights and duties toward men 
and toward God. 

Thus was accomplished the great work of the 
reconstruction of the world. It was finished in 
seven days,—a mysterious number, a mystical 
number, the number of perfection. In it God 
gave man the measure of time and of human 
life, correspondent to the movements of the 
sun, moon and planets, which he had created 
‘‘to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days 
and years.’’ Even more, after so many cen- 
turies of man’s almost complete rebellion 
against God, men still measure the week by the 
seven days of the Biblical creation. That week 
was a mysterious symbol of higher things, a 
parable of seven millenniums of human life on 
earth, the last evening of which will see the 
dawn of a happier and an eternal day. I ask 
again what honest science can object to in this 
marvelous, noble, and mysterious history of 
the seven days of creation and reconstruction. 
A spiritually minded man will acquiesce in 


142 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


silent wonder; the carnal, the proud, the igno- 
rant, the wiseacres, will not understand and 
will blaspheme what they ignore. But the 
Bible was not written for them! 

I have said that in our earth traces have re- 
mained of the primitive creation of the earth, 
as it was before the demonical destruction. 
Even to school boys are known the poetic pic- 
tures, the ideal forests, the lovely meadows, 
streams and rivulets of the Carboniferous 
Epoch, when, according to a theory accepted as 
incontestably true by all geologists, the earth 
was much warmer than now, the precipitation 
of rain more abundant, and far richer in car- 
bonic acid. The earth was then covered with 
gigantic forests, from one pole to the other; 
we can still perceive the remains of these, al- 
though in a very small proportion, in the coal 
deposits that exist everywhere, from north to 
south, in the cold, temperate, tropical, and tor- 
rid regions. Those forests were overrun by 
gigantic animals, colossal winged serpents, 
enormous crocodiles, huge elephants, strange 
and frightful birds, the skeletons of which may 
be seen in the museums of the world. 

It is my belief that the Carboniferous Epoch 
of our earth is a fragmentary record of the 
primitive earth, before its destruction took 


DiIvINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 143 


place. The earth of those distant times was in- 
finitely more beautiful than the present one, 
richer in vegetable and animal forms, more 
wealthy in useful and precious metals and 
gems,—such, indeed, as to defy the most vivid 
imagination of poets and novelists. And the 
whole earth was, then, so lovely! In fact, those 
tropical forests where thousands of palms and 
gigantic ferns raised their feathery leaves to 
the sky, now seen only in India, Brazil, and tor- 
rid Africa, then grew everywhere: on the banks 
of the Thames as at the foot of the Alps; in 
the center of Asia, now a desert, as in India; 
at the poles, near the Great Lakes of the United 
States, and in the very center of the Sahara 
desert. Geologists attribute the Carboniferous 
formations to the palaeozoic age, a very ancient 
period of the earth, the second one from its be- 
ginning, the dawn of life. I attribute the same 
to the primitive earth. The tabulated epochs of 
ceologists deserve, as we heard from Huxley, 
and even from Darwin, very little considera- 
tion; but when contrasted with Genesis, they 
deserve none. He who has read only one book 
of geology may think it a science; should you 
read two independent books, you immediately 
lose confidence; if you read a number of them, 
you are forced to exclaim ‘‘ We know very little, 


144 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


next to nothing, and the little we know is very 
doubtful!’’ The writer of this book is a geolo- 
gist, and a Director of Mines into the bargain! 

The first earth, the earth overrun by the gi- 
gantic animals, has left some distant record in 
the coal deposits that man finds all over the 
world. Those gigantic animals were propor- 
tioned to that earth, not to ours; and so man 
never saw them. Here also the principle of 
decadence prevails, not the principle of indefi- 
nite progress. The second earth, the earth of 
the reconstruction, though beautiful, was far 
inferior in beauty to the first one; as the earth 
of Adam and Eve was far better, richer, and 
more lovely than the earth of the present day. 
For the earth is slowly, gradually, but surely, 
drying up and turning into a desert. Man, 
under Satan, the prince and god of this world, 
is slowly destroying the earth by cutting down 
its forests; whence the denudation of moun- 
tains, the landslips of hills and terraces, the silt- 
ing up of rivers and sea coasts, the changing of 
climates and regular seasons, the growth of 
malaria and other deadly diseases, and, finally, 
the desert, solitude, and death. Not without 
reason the earth was cursed together with 
Adam, and the whole creation now ‘‘groaneth 
and travaileth in pain, wishing to be delivered 


DivINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 145 


from the bondage of corruption, and waiting 
for the manifestation [the unveiling] of the 
sons of God, when the creation will get free 
from that awful tyrant who has subjected it to 
corruption’’ (Rom. 8: 22). 

Has chaos likewise left any record of itself 
in our earth? Undoubtedly, and here geology 
fully corroborates the Bible. The interior of 
our globe shows everywhere the unmistakable 
marks of an appalling catastrophe, which all 
geologists admit, but which they explain in 
various ways. ‘The writer of these lines is a 
geologist and a chemist, who for years taught 
physical science as well. He is, therefore, nec- 
essarily pretty familiar with his subject. Ge- 
ologists have not yet succeeded in formulating 
a tabulated scheme or diagram indicating, in 
order of time, the rocks that succeeded one an- 
other in the fabric of the earth, for the reason 
that they are confronted with two facts, equally 
certain and equally mysterious. 

That is, there is an apparent order and regu- 
larity in the disposition of the rocks; and there 
is also a manifest disorder which disturbs this 
regularity in many ways and renders utterly 
useless and baseless any theory or tabulated 
plan! The disorder is of such a nature that it 
seems due to a cosmic cataclysm, to a catastro- 

10 


146 Tue BIBLICAL SToRY OF CREATION 


phe which, not by degrees and slow means, but 
very suddenly acted on the rocks and within 
the very bowels of the earth. This order and 
disorder amid the rocks constituting the back- 
bone of our earth is a fact, not a theory or a 
hypothesis. Hence some geologists, fixing their 
gaze exclusively on the regular strata of the 
earth’s crust, formulate plausible theories 
about them and draw tabulated schemes of the 
rocks of the earth. But other geologists, who 
keep an eye on the constant, universal, and pro- 
found irregularities that one meets in the suc- 
cessive strata of the earth’s crust, laugh at the 
tabulated theories of their compeers, and retire 
into a disdainful agnosticism. 

Hence geology is hardly a science at all. It 
tries empirically to say something about the 
formation of the earth’s crust, but sound rea- 
soning and the certain data from experiments 
forbid us to lay down any theory as certain and 
definite. Geology is a science in the making, 
a science of the future, not certainly a science 
to-day. Its three principal theories as to the 
origin of rocks, plutonism, neptunism, and vul- 
canism, have ended in skepticism. Theories 
follow one another in quick succession and sat- 
isfy no one. Not a day passes that does not 
see new hypotheses, new schemes, new plans, 


DIVINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 147 


new tabulated results, as to the formation of 
the earth; in reality there is a Babel of tongues 
and nothing more. If any reader doubts this 
assertion, let him consult books on geology and 
he will undeceive himself. 

Must we wonder at all this? By no means. 
Geologists have undertaken an impossible 
task! Looking upon an immense globe of ruins 
and broken fragments, they want to tell us how 
the first fabric of the earth rose and came into 
being. A vain labor, a useless effort! They 
will never succeed in their endeavors. If, how- 
ever, laying aside their preconceived ideas of 
evolution, they accept the Bible’s account of the 
reconstruction of the earth, they will have light 
in the darkness by which they are surrounded. 
The internal structure of the earth will not ap- 
pear, then, as mysterious as now. 

It has been demonstrated that crystalline 
rocks, believed to have been caused by fire, can 
be produced by water as well; water is the great 
solving agent, which dissolves everything, and 
under certain conditions even dissolves lime- 
stones, silicates, and metals. For a time pluton- 
ism prevailed in geology; afterward neptun- 
ism; then both theories were modified by 
vulcanism; now geologists are lost in minutia, 
and by specializing fail to see the great facts 


148 THe BrBuicAL Story OF CREATION 


of the universe. The Bible describes chaos. In 
chaos water prevailed; and water prevails still 
on the earth. Not only seas and oceans form 
the largest portion of the world, but who is able 
to say how much water circulates underground, 
between the crust and the central nucleus of 
the earth? That vast masses of water do exist 
there is not a theory or a hypothesis, but a well 
proved fact. 

So it is a fact that vast masses of rock, of a 
nature altogether different, have invaded regu- 
lar strata of the earth, have passed through 
them, perforating them from end to end, have 
penetrated them, dislocated them in every di- 
rection and from every angle. The cause of all 
this? Water or fire? Or water and fire com- 
bined? 

There prevails now among geologists a the- 
ory about our earth which one may believe to 
be very well grounded, and which the writer 
accepts. They think that fire had, in reality, 
very little to do with our earth; in consequence, 
most of the crystalline rocks, once attributed 
to the agency of fire, are now thought to be due 
to the powerful agency of water. They also 
believe that the great mountain chains, once 
supposed to have been raised up by volcanoes, 
are the result of other forces, some violent, 


DiIvINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 149: 


most of them slow and gradual, and subject 
moreover to chemical processes of vast and far- 
reaching effects. They finally teach that our 
earth in most ancient times, before the appear- 
ance of man, underwent an appalling catastro- 
phe, by reason of which the earth’s axis was 
displaced and broken into pieces, and that in 
consequence the earth was literally upset, dis- 
embowelled, destroyed. As the Scandinavian 
mythology and the Egyptian priests assert, 
‘‘after the catastrophe the sun rose where be- 
fore it set,’’ thus showing how universal, how 
deep, how appalling the cataclysm was. 

The signs of this catastrophe are not want- 
ing, partly physical, partly geological, astro- 
nomical, and chemical. One of these is gener- 
ally known to people who are not familiar with 
geology and astronomy. It is a very well- 
known fact that, as mentioned above, during the 
Carboniferous Epoch the terrestrial equator 
passing through what are now cold and north- 
ern regions, while regions that now are tropical 
or torrid lay under a thick sheet of ice, im- 
mersed in the most intense cold. This fact is 
attributed by most geologists to the breaking 
of the axis of the earth, which was due, accord- 
ing to some, to the powerful attraction of a 
star that came too near our earth; others main- 


150 THE BreuicaL STorY OF CREATION 


tain that the catastrophe was due to the pour- 
ing out of immense masses of lava which, lying 
on the surface of the earth, caused it by their 
great weight to lose its center of gravity. Still 
others put forward other reasons. The fact is 
certain; the explanation uncertain and doubt- 
ful. 

May I suggest an explanation that is at least 
as plausible as those alluded to? The Bible, 
the Babylonian Poem of Creation, the Book of 
Enoch, the ancient Vedic, Persian, Sandinavian, 
Etruscan and Greek poems narrate the fall of 
the rebellious angels from heaven upon the 
earth. The consequence of that fall was the 
destruction of our earth. This is certain. But 
how was that destruction effected? I am in- 
clined to think that, by their fall, the angels 
displaced the vast masses of waters that un- 
doubtedly exist above our sky. The ocean of 
sweet waters, represented in the Babylonian 
Poem of Creation by Apsu, fell down and 
mixed its waters with the salt-water ocean rep- 
resented by Tiamat. That immense weight of 
water displaced the earth’s axis, broke it to 
pieces, and thus literally destroyed the earth. 
This havoc was effected through water, not by 
fire. 

The entire Bible is filled with this idea. <Ac- 


DivinE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 151 


cording to the Scripture there is a heaven of the 
heavens where God dwells, among an almost 
infinite number of stars, i. e., angels. There is 
also a stellar heaven, and there is the heaven 
of our sun, moon and planets. There are waters 
over our sky; and, once upon a time, there was 
an abyss or chaos, possessed or guarded by 
Rahab, Leviathan and other dragons, who were 
the dragons of the abyss. The earth, says the 
Bible, was covered ‘‘with a deep [abyss] as 
with a garment: the waters stood above the 
mountains.’’ It was chaos. But at the rebuke 
of God ‘‘they fled; at the voice of thy [God’s] 
thunder they hasted away. They go up by the 
mountains; they go down by the valleys unto 
the place which thou [God] hast founded for 
them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not 
pass over; that they turn not again to cover 
the earth’’ (Psa. 104). The sacred poet does 
not speak here of the deluge. It is the Song of 
the Creation, not the poem of the deluge. The 
waters which, at the deluge, drowned all men, 
were the ministers of God’s wrath against hu- 
manity; here the waters are rebuked by God 
and chased away by him. These waters are the 
ministers of Satan’s spite against the Al- 
mighty. The primitive earth was created by 
God most beautiful and perfect; our earth, as 


152 THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


Scripture says, was made to stand ‘‘out of the 
water and in the water: whereby the world 
that then was, being overflowed with water, 
perished’’ (2 Pet. 3:5). 

The Babylonian poem teaches the same thing. 
Apsu the sweet-water ocean joins Tiamat the 
salt-water ocean. The two gods of disorder 
join together to fight the gods of order. They 
mingled their waters in one. Did the weight of 
the waters that are over the sky suffice, when 
fallen upon the earth, to displace its axis? Who 
can reasonably deny it? Yea, only a great 
weight, a colossal weight laid on the earth’s 
surface could displace its center of gravity and 
break its axis. Was this the mode of action 
resorted to by the rebellious angels in order to 
destroy the earth, and reduce it to a chaos? It 
is more than probable, and the earth bears still 
the marks of the catastrophe. 

The magnificent tropical forests with which 
the earth was then covered lay buried under 
the colossal ruin, and became, through the 
course of centuries, the actual coal-fields of our 
day. The gigantic animals that peopled our 
planet suffered the same fate as the forests, 
and perished all together by a violent and sud- 
den death; and we now find a few of them in 
a fossil state, perfectly preserved, These fos- 


DivINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 153 


sils are, to my belief, a vestige, a trace, a sign, 
a relic of that awful catastrophe, brought about 
by the wickedness of Satan and of his rebellious 
angels. No fossils are formed now, either in 
the vegetable or animal kingdom. There is no 
record of any really fossilized animal, the date 
of whose burial can be historically certain. For 
many millenniums plants, animals, men, dead 
and buried, have decayed through slow chemi- 
cal alterations and are sooner or later reduced 
to dust, according to the divine command, 
‘‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou re- 
turn.’’ The sentence of God against sinful man 
was extended to the whole creation, which suf- 
fers, groans and travails together with man, 
on account of his sin, because of our sins. When 
the sons of God shall be delivered from bond- 
age, then the creation also shall rejoice in the 
glorious liberty of the children of God. 

A word in conclusion. In the Bible analogies 
are often solid proofs. Noah and his wife 
stood, in relation to the earth of their days, as 
Adam and Eve stood in relation to the earth 
of their time. The earth of Noah had just come 
forth from the catastrophe of the deluge: so, 
likewise, the earth of Adam and Eve had just 
issued from the havoc of the demoniacal fury,— 
i. e., it had issued from the waters, as Genesis 


154. THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION 


and Peter describe. The analogy is perfect; 
and is another point of evidence, among the 
many brought forward, to prove our interpre- 
tation of Genesis. 

The interpretation of Genesis that we have 
followed out through this book is the true one, 
and the only true one. It is not contrary to 
science; on the other hand it sheds a flood of 
light on true science. It closely follows the Bib- 
lical symbolism, which always takes darkness 
to mean the forces of nature,—i. e., Satan and 
his kingdom; whereas light is the symbol of 
Grace, of Love, of God. It fully agrees with the 
sacred books of the nations, and especially with 
the most ancient Babylonian Poem of Creation. 
The teaching is found constantly throughout 
the Old and New Testaments, and has the au- 
thority of our Lord and of the apostles. It 
once occupied an honorable place in the Chris- 
tian world, which, unfortunately, it lost later 
on. Happy are we if in the light of Genesis, 
thus interpreted, we increase our knowledge of 
God and of his holiness, and come to know also 
the awful strength and wiles of the Devil, whose 
constant effort is to thwart, oppose, and de- 
stroy God’s works. But God and his Christ do 
not abandon their children to the cruelty of the 
prince and god of this world. ‘‘He that com- 


DIvINE RECONSTRUCTION, AND SCIENCE 155 


mitteth sin,’’ says John, ‘‘is of the Devil; for 
the Devil sinneth from the beginning. For this 
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he 
might destroy the works of the Devil’? (John 
3:8). Christians need not be discouraged; the 
Son of God is constantly at our side undoing, 
destroying, the works which the Devil, the 
great enemy of God, is plotting against us. 









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